


Cherchez la femme

by pudgy puk (deumion)



Series: it sounds like a whisper [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Character Growth, Character Study, Dangerous Brume Radicals, Dragons, Drama, Gen, Gratuitous Les Miserables Homage, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Ishgardian Class and Gender Politics, Jailbreaks, Other, Pre-Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16818484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deumion/pseuds/pudgy%20puk
Summary: “I remember well the day I met young Hilda. I shan’t dwell on the details, but the first words she had for me were… bracing, to say the least.” - Stephanivien de Haillenarte





	1. Chapter 1

It was not at all long ago that Count Baurendouin de Haillenarte counted among the great errors of his life allowing his eldest son to amuse himself in the munitions factory of his holdings, for it led him to pursuits—of the mind as well as the hands—most dreadfully unsuited to a viscount of his stature. Though he has, in recent years, repented of this belief, the real truth of the matter was always kept secret from him by his son Stephanivien: It was not Skysteel Manufactory’s munitions that so turned his heart and mind, it was the Forgotten Knight’s mulled wine—and it did not happen when he first gazed, enthralled as only a child can be, at manufacturing machines and forges and their masters, but when he ran that mulled wine between the Forgotten Knight and the Temple Knight he squired for.

Stephanivien, heir to House Haillenarte, was born to immense privilege and with immense promise. Countess Lapinette’s first birth, nine ponze even and twenty-four and a half ilms, loud and hungry and well-favored in every aspect: he would certainly, agreed both the physicians and midwives, grow tall and strong and healthy. Their prediction proved accurate and then some: not only did he tower almost a full head over his peers in boyhood, but he then outstripped them in their studies. He mastered material in half the time it took boys two years his senior to learn, and his resultant restlessness—perhaps it was a warning sign of what was to come, but still his parents near burst with pride. Their prodigy was a sign of the House’s rising star, and to demonstrate this (and, hopefully, give him enough to do that he stopped taking apart his mother’s music boxes for boredom) he began his formal training years early: a mere fortnight after his ninth nameday.

Unfortunately, Ser Thierremont de Jannevert was not as convinced of Stephanivien’s merit as his family was (and perhaps as he honestly should have been—but dwelling on twenty-year-old counterfactuals here will lead us nowhere). It took him about a bell for him to settle on “Ser Weathervane” as an appropriate moniker for his charge: Tall and thin with a brass-gold head and graceless, whirling limbs like to knock out anyone unwary nearby—and it rhymed with Stephanivien, besides. The responsibilities Thierremont was willing to give him matched the dignity and gravitas of that nickname, even a full turn of the seasons later. Stephanivien would mind the hour, polish the simpler pieces of his knight’s armor, black his boots, and run whatever errands Thierremont called for—including, yes, checking the weather and forecast with the nearest skywatcher. But even more often than that, Thierremont wanted food and wine from the Forgotten Knight, and far more often than not, this task fell to Stephanivien.

And it wasn’t that he thought it was a particularly spiteful demand (though it was) or difficult at all (perhaps if he were the size of his friends, he would). What really irked him about this errand was that it made it impossible to work—no, not at mixing polish or copying particular papers or even reviewing _The Principle Elements and Diverse Manners of Bladework, Swordplay, and Shield Technique, Suitable for Duelling, Self-Defense, and Battle_ ; but at _important_ things. There was no space at the Forgotten Knight to fiddle with engines and devices, even if carting tools all the way was pleasant—and when the crowds were thick, Stephanivien wouldn’t dare bring even a pocket-timepiece or gyro to tinker with, not after the last time he’d been shoved, dropped it, and a careless stranger stumbled and promptly crushed it underfoot. And almost all the cooks and staff were too busy to engage a gangly squire like him in conversation, so until quite recently, Forgotten Knight errands were endless tedium.

But on this day, Stephanivien had a spring in his step as he made his way there, down from the pillars—a spring, a few bolts, and a brown-paper package no larger than a compass in his pocket.

“Cooky—oof, excuse me—Cooky?” The Forgotten Knight was always packed during the dinner hours—even moreso when it rained, leaving Stephanivien only the tactical and ruthless use of wide shoulders and pointy elbows to get to the bar. “Order for Ser— _ow_! Let me through!—Cooky Arboulaint, it’s me, Ser Thierremont wants his share of your roasts.” He may have been a tall lad for ten summers, but he’d yet to gain much in the way of muscle; when he made it to the front of the crowd he clung to the bar for dear life to not get swept away by that tide of cold, hungry men and women.

“‘Course he does,” the old chef called back, long used to these orders. “Four slices, two popotoes, pearl sprouts, and a cheese?”

“Five slices,” Stephanivien corrected helpfully. “And a loaf of bread and butter. And— _spppbft_ —” A jostle as he was unwinding his scarf put wool in his mouth and left him sputtering for a moment, “and alpine parsnips, ‘stead of sprouts.” The extra slice of roast and loaf of bread Stephanivien requested was for himself, and technically he ought not do this—but he would take whatever avenues of petty vengeance against that petty man as presented themselves, including having him pay to satisfy yet another growth spurt.

Arboulaint narrowed his eyes, glancing around the dining hall—packed to standing room only. “A whole loaf?”

“Two halves?” Stephanivien offered, with his best attempt at a winning smile.

“We’ll see,” Arboulaint said, then “The barmaid’s thataway,” pointing to where a black-haired midlander lass was pouring for a passel of Dzemael stonemasons. He knew as well as Stephanivien did that her mulled wine was Thierremont’s favorite, and on a cold day he’d take no other. With a salute and a moment to steel himself, Stephanivien once again pushed his way back into the crowd, one hand on his little wrapped parcel to guard it against crushing or pickpockets.

The press of people was such that she had no idea he was there until he popped up in front of her, and thus he had the privilege of seeing her pleased smile of recognition up close. “My best customer, Ser Stephanivien!”

“You mean, Ser Thierremont,” Stephanivien said, cheeks rather redder than they ought to have been after so long inside and out of the wind.

“Oh, him? He only buys my wine. You, though,” the barmaid winked at him (ignored the stonemason asking why _he_ never got winks) and tweaked the tip of his ear, “you make entire hours of work melt away.”

Grinning from one red ear to the other, Stephanivien beamed at her, quite involuntarily, and almost as involuntarily blurted out: “I have a surprise for you.” And when he pulled his ringbox-sized parcel out of his pocket, whatever she might have said at first was drowned out in the din from the table she just poured for, as they burst out laughing, clapping, and whooping.

Stephanivien, mortified, immediately shoved the box back in his pocket and if the crowd were any thinner he would have tried to bolt. The barmaid, though, was far less affected—or rather, less embarrassed, her cheeks were the normal color as she cuffed the loudest of the louts about his ears.

“—shamed, he’s a good lad,” was the first thing Stephanivien could make out as the noise died down. “Stephanivien, love, come with me.”

Still blushing, he followed her back by the ovens, very determinedly ignoring the low murmur behind them. “Now, then, dear,” she turned around, leaning a bit (which actually put her face an ilm or two below his), “Never you mind them. What was it you had?”

Stephanivien brightened again, and retrieved the box again, this time a bit more gracefully, and offered it to her again, this time a bit less bluntly. “It’s for you.”

She took it with a curtsy, and began carefully unfolding the paper. “A gift from House Haillenarte?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow—the other one joined it when Stephanivien’s smile turned at once secretive and gleeful.

“Open it!”

“Well, surely I…” She stopped speaking as she pulled the lid off the box, and saw what lay beneath it. “Oh…” and the lid slipped from her hand, straight to the floor.

Inside the box, nestled on a bed of three handkerchiefs, laid a little silver pocketwatch on a chain. The cover had an intricately shaped relief of woven and knotted vines and flowers, rose gold inlay for the central blossom, polished to gleam even in the lower, redder lights by the ovens—and the pure silver backing would have been as a mirror. Even the links of the chain had not even a hint of tarnish, and set into the hinge was a star-sapphire—tiny but brilliantly cut. In truth, all of it could be so described—this particular watch was quite small, quite light, but all the more exquisite for it.

“It’s your old watch!” Stephanivien couldn’t hold back his wonderful little secret anymore, and the words gushed forth quickly. “I know you gave it to me because it didn’t work anymore, but I fixed it all up, and I thought you should have it back, because it’s such a splendid little watch, and I even wound it already!” She could have heard it tick if she put her ear to it, but not otherwise given the noise of the rest of the place, and since she was staring so starkly at it, not moving or speaking, he thought for a moment maybe he ought to urge her to, but decided against it. “It was really hard to fix! I don’t think I ever saw a watch so small, but we have so many old watches and music boxes and clocks anyhow, I finally found parts small enough to work. Whoever first made it must have been really, really good, it was so hard to see all the little bits right! Oh,” he paused for a breath, and also a nervous swallow, because she still hadn’t moved—oh, but her lips shook, but did involuntary movement count…?“oh, I also replaced the gems, so it should keep time like—like something really good. And,” Stephanivien faltered. Her eyes looked as shiny as the watch itself, and he couldn’t think of why that could be—except maybe… “and don’t worry about me, I have four or five pocket-watches, but—you don’t… so…” It was now, as he was trailing off, that the barmaid burst into tears.

Naturally, Stephanivien began to panic. “Are—are you—what’s wrong?” He shifted very awkwardly from one foot to another, reaching out to her but not sure if he should try to hug her or—or if he needed to take the watch back, or hold her other hand, or what in all the realm was going on. “Did I—I thought I did all right…” He chewed at his lower lip with anxiety, looking around to see if there was anyone else around, anyone who might be able to advise.

“No,” she managed to murmur, and for a moment Stephanivien’s heart froze. “No—dearie, you did wonderfully.” She sniffled and Stephanivien finally had the presence of mind to hand her one of his own handkerchiefs; to his relief she accepted and began wiping her tears. “It looks like it did when I first saw it, and I’m—I’m grateful, love.” She hiccuped and swallowed and never before had Stephanivien seen anyone, let alone her, look so miserable. “It’s just—”

“ _WENCH!!_ ” That was Arboulaint’s voice, and both of them jumped with surprise. “Get back to the dining floor!”

“You better be going,” she whispered urgently to Stephanivien, as she slipped the pocket-watch, still in its box, into her bodice. “Your master’s food’ll be ready too, I’m sure. Go along.” She actually had to shoo him before he unfroze enough to hurry back along the way he had come, while the barmaid went in the direction of Arboulaint’s bellow. “I’m coming, I’m coming, already!”

“You don’t have a break for four bells, wench, if you don’t get back to work—Halone help me, I’ll garnish your—” Arboulaint’s scolding was loud enough that Stephanivien only lost track of it when another worker in the scullery shoved his and Ser Thierremont’s food into his arms. Numbly, moving only on instinct and muscle memory, he made his way back to the building where Ser Thierremont was working, wobbling through corridors before entering his office, putting the warm parcel down on his desk.

His master only glanced at it once before fixing Stephanivien with an annoyed look. “Where’s the wine?”

“What?” His expression was only slightly less stupid and stupefied than that question.

“My mulled wine, Ser Weathervane,” Thierremont said, clearly put out. “Don’t tell me you forgot it.”

Now a coherent emotion, a definable and nameable emotion, emerged from his current messy maelstrom of feeling: anger. “I shan’t tell you, then.”

“Boy.” Thierremont’s tone was a warning, as was the very deliberately delicate way he put his fancy griffin-feather quill aside. “I can hardly justify giving proper squiring responsibilities to you if you can’t manage proper errand boy responsibilities.”

Right now, anger was the easiest thing to feel: anger and an overwhelming, infuriating feeling of injustice. So little squire Stephanivien embraced it. “You can justify it to my father, if it pleases you, ser.”

At that, Thierremont stood straight up with enough force to knock his chair backwards. His face twisted with fury before he mastered himself—and even then, only enough to point at the door and growl, “ _Out_.”

Turning on his heel with a prideful air, as though he’d won (though, even angry, Stephanivien already knew he had done nothing of the sort), he obeyed, stalking back out into that dismal afternoon. Glaring around at all and sundry—and, when nothing suitably villainous presented itself to be abashed in the face of his ill humor, up into the raining sky itself, as if it could be affected—he tightened his scarf around his neck and hiked it up to cover half his face, and set out to walk off his mood and wait out Ser Thierremont’s.

…But it was just so _unfair_.

Given what he was dwelling on, it was not surprising that he found his way down to the Forgotten Knight again. By now it was growing late, and the lamps outside that tavern had been lit, and by their light Stephanivien could see a figure outside, leaning against the wall next to the notice board. Her black hair gleamed blue when the flickering light caught it, and she had her arms wrapped around her thin frame, and Stephanivien jogged over at once when he realized it was the barmaid.

This time there was no crowd to conceal his approach—and this time, her smile at seeing him was more wan, and she looked far more tired than she ought, after a mere handful of bells. He slowed up, as if the situation warranted more somberness. “H’lo,” Stephanivien said through his scarf.

“Evening, dear,” she replied, but—said no more.

“‘m sorry,” he offered, after a moment of fidgeting with the fringe of his scarf. “For making you cry.”

“Oh, love,” she sighed. “Wasn’t that. It was—” she opened her mouth but bit off whatever she was going to say, then sighed, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

Stephanivien waited respectfully for her to continue (his mother often paused conversation like this when she was tired, and since his youngest brother had been born she seemed always tired)—but she didn’t. So, after a moment of nervous indecision, he prompted, “Was what?”

“…Wasn’t fair.”

Whatever he had thought she might say—about the watch or the timing or the presentation, that had upset her—well, fairness didn’t figure into it. He was confused, and fortunately, the barmaid could see so. With another sigh, she continued.

“You know, I told you I gave it to you because it didn’t run anymore, and I know you love playing with clock-pieces.” He nodded silently—and she didn’t seem to want to make eye contact anymore, but must have seen the gesture still. “Well—thing is, love, if it had run, I wouldn’t be giving it away, I would’ve pawned or sold it.”

“…Oh,” he said. There seemed to be a larger, a more final sort of implication in her words, but it was evading him. “For money…?”

She laughed, though it was a sad sound. “Aye, money. The broker though, wouldn’t give me a tenth what it was worth, his excuse was it didn’t run. Silversmith—he thought I _stole_ it,” she made a scornful, angry sound at that, shaking her head, and ignored Stephanivien’s shocked exclamation of “Why?!” to continue on, “—said he didn’t take parts from stolen goods. So,” she took a deep breath, and looked him in the face, “—so I gave it away, not hoping—not thinking I’d ever see it again. But—”

“—But I fixed it,” Stephanivien supplied. Now he was the one who couldn’t meet the other’s eyes, thinking hard, with a faint tendril of guilt starting to curl in his belly.

“You did, and—Halone, be merciful, but the first thing I thought was I could pay rent for certain, and—” She was choking up again—this time it didn’t take Stephanivien any time at all to dig through his pockets for another handkerchief to offer her. “—and it was… It was all so unfair.”

He nodded, silent. Once again, he didn’t know what to say, but for a different reason this time. This was a—a new kind of confusing, instead of having no knowledge relating to a small problem, a bad gear or a difficult exam… this was bigger, and he didn’t see or know how but he felt it, far too big for any words he knew.

“Doesn’t Arboulaint pay you?” His voice was hollow and awkward—not only from her story, but from his memory of Cooky’s fury earlier.

“Oh, yes, and I get by, usually,” she said, folding up his handkerchief to return it, with the air of someone who is trying to convince herself that she was feeling better. “It’s only that the baby outgrew her coat, and—” the barmaid stopped up short as Stephanivien jerked his head up to look at her, surprised.

“I didn’t know you had a baby,” he blurted out. Shouldn’t she—well—oughtn’t she not be on her feet so much? His own mother, after all—she had had a lot of babies, and each time the family chirurgeon ordered her off her feet for some moons, without fail.

“I do,” she said, smiling, and her smile was even tinier than it had been before, melancholy yet sincere. “Light of my life, heart of my heart. Her father gave me the watch, before—well… before.”

Again, there was a finality in that simple word, “before,” that he could grasp the edges of but not the entirety. Stephanivien swallowed nervously. “If—if you need gil… I could…”

“You could buy some wine?” The barmaid said, softly.

“…Yeah.”

And by the time Stephanivien wandered back to Thierremont’s offices, the mulled wine had gone cold, but he was still so lost in thought he barely acknowledged the upbraiding.

* * *

“Well, that one certainly doesn’t fit,” the head maid muttered, looking Joye over—disapprovingly, and Joye did her best to remind herself that Mistress Audrey only disapproved of that blouse’s sleeves and skirt’s hem, both far too long—not her, herself. “Here, try this one.” She held out another blouse and skirt, which Joye obediently took and ducked behind the curtain again.

She’d never before had a job with a dress code—and yes, she had worked before, as much distaste as Madame Countess had had for a maiden even her age now working. With only her older father to care for her, Joye had recognized the need to augment the household’s income almost as soon as she learned to walk. Her previous forays in business mostly consisted of selling roast chestnuts and popotos, teaming up with the other local girls, Jeannette and Hilda and Gwennie, to pick and sell flowers, and doing odd errands for a few gilcoins here and a few more there, none of which required a uniform. But the House Haillenarte had _standards_.

“How’s this, Mistress?” Joye asked, pulling aside the curtain to be inspected, in her clean white blouse and blue skirt.

“Mmm—It’ll do, it’ll do.” Mistress Audrey fussed over the tucking of her blouse, a bit roughly. “Heaven knows you’re still growing, anyroad.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Joye murmured, head and eyes downcast.

“None of that ill humor,” Audrey said sharply, hand under Joye’s chin to lift her face and gaze, looking her in the eye. “His lordship the Count is a fair employer, and he deserves proper respect, not sullenness.” Her rebuke was delivered before Joye could correct her—she wasn’t trying to be sullen, just deferential. She knew very well where she stood, relative to him and his, and…

“Yes, Mistress.” This time she delivered the line with clarity of gaze and voice. “‘m very grateful. I’m very lucky.”

“Mmm…” Mistress Audrey considered her—her face, voice, demeanor, self—but this time declined to upbraid her. “You’ll learn, I suppose.” Joye nodded. “We’ll start you with sweeping—go see Nelly, in the southwest wing, she’ll have a job or two for you.”

Mistress Audrey didn’t wait for Joye’s response, but bustled off—probably she had a great deal of responsibilities to handle already. However, Joye didn’t follow her directions immediately. Instead, she backed behind the changing curtain again—just long enough to master both her trembling lips and her trembling fists.

The thing—the galling thing—was that Mistress Audrey was right and wrong about the very same things. It was true that Count Baurendouin de Haillenarte was soft-hearted, and generous, and she was lucky that it was his mercy that had sighted her and her predicament first, instead of any of Ishgard’s predators, wolves in sheep’s clothing, or other dangers. Things could be much worse. …Things could also be much _better_. Illness could have spared her father, not taking the strength of his limbs or control of his hands, and thus leaving him unable to work any but the simplest of occupations. Her mother could have stayed instead of leaving all those years ago, so that one man’s income didn’t determine whether their family would be destitute. The harvest could have been better—the storm could have gone and not lingered—a thousand small misfortunes could have not happened, and this one great mercy shown to her was a job whose uniform she would have to grow into.

Joye rubbed her eyes one last time, then went out of the little laundry-room, towards the southwest wing. She did want this job, after all—it was a good one she was lucky to have, and if the sleeves were too long, all it meant was that it’d be easy to hide her hands curled into fists.

The southwestern wing was where the household slept, it turned out, and in the hallway there was already a maid there—gathering up the rugs, likely to beat them. Another midlander, probably a bit younger than Mistress Audrey but taller, and with a tougher, more wiry build.

“Nelly?” Joye asked, softly, and she looked up from her work.

“Aye.” Nelly’s voice was higher-pitched and seemed to project without her trying. “You the new girl? Joye?”

She nodded, then did a belated and awkward curtsey. “Pleased to meet you, miss.”

“A pleasure, aye.” Nelly didn’t curtsey, but she did stand straight to look Joye over. “Audrey likes to start the new girls on sweeping, right?” Mutely Joye nodded. “All right—here, let me show you where I want you working.” Nelly winked. “And what the place is like. It’s no fun getting lost your first fortnight.”

At that, Joye cracked a tiny smile, and her tightly-held fists loosened. Maybe this really would be a stroke of good luck.

“Right, so—that there,” Nelly pointed to closed double doors at the end of the hallway passage, “that’s the master’s bedchambers, the Count and Countess. I won’t have you doin’ much in there to start, just sweep the dust round the edges of the rugs and carpet once a day, mind her ladyship’s porcelain wares and glass. Right now she’s takin’ her afternoon nap—so, no shouting, right?” Nelly grinned, probably because it was difficult for her to imagine so small a girl making much noise at all, Joye thought—and of course, like Mistress Audrey, Nelly was wrong as well, but Joye didn’t feel it quite so necessary to correct her, this time. She simply nodded again.

“Just with a broom and a dustpan?”

“Just so. Now,” here Nelly pointed to the doors closest to the master bedchambers, “these here are young master Francel’s rooms. Youngest of the lot—maybe around your age, I’d reckon.” Nelly squinted at Joye and scratched her chin; for her part Joye just nodded seriously. “He’s got weak nerves, is a bit sickly—I expect usually to see him either holding her ladyship’s skirts or hiding behind his lordship the Count.”

How similar and how different he and Joye were. Very deliberately she put that thought from her mind to think instead about the layout of the wing. “And those?” She pointed at the door next to Francel’s, slightly ajar, through which a rather impressive collection of field-gathered geological specimens (that is, rocks) could be seen.

“Ah, master Aurvael’s chambers. He’s the second son. His room’s covered in maps and specimens, prone to get exceptionally dusty. I want you sweeping it out twice a day, mid-morning and right before dinner,” Nelly explained. “Now, the other doors next to the master’s, those go to Mistress Laniaitte’s chambers. Great lover of chocobos and knights, like most young maidens, just would rather be one than court one.”

(Joye considered joking on whether Nelly meant courting the chocobo or the knight, but decided against it). “Is she very tidy?”

“Not at all. You’ll need a mop more often than not,” Nelly sighed, and Joye nodded gravely. “Now, the last rooms here, just down from Mistress Laniaitte’s, those are Ser Chlodebaimt’s rooms.” Something changed about Nelly’s voice then, something conspiratorially gleeful entered it. “ _The_ Rose Knight, himself.”

Joye politely, confusedly blinked at her, to indicate how little that meant to her.

“The first proper knight of this count’s sons—Aurvael’s a soldier but hasn’t earned his spurs yet, but _Chlodebaimt_ …” Nelly’s eyes sparkled as she spoke. “He’s fearless, honorable—so tall and strong, you’d never dream he was but ten-and-seven—pure of heart and so—simply so—”

“Beautiful?” Joye asked, with a raised eyebrow but otherwise flat expression. Perhaps it was impertinent to say this to her senior here, but surely no more so than how Nelly was going on about her employer’s son, if Joye had the right of the situation.

“ _Yes_!” Nelly cried—before she came back to herself and her station from whatever airy-fairy fantasy had gripped her, clearing her throat and fidgeting with her bodice laces. “I mean—yes, Ser Chlodebaimt has… many qualities to recommend him. You’ll not need to sweep in there more than once a day, and not for long then.”

“Yes, mistress,” Joye said, obviously amused—before her brow wrinkled in thought. She glanced up and down the length of the hallway, but those five doors were the only ones fit to admit entry to noble blood—and yet, if she remembered aright… “I thought his lordship the Count had five children…?”

“Hm? Oh! You mean Master Stephanivien,” Nelly said, and Joye thought it odd she had to take a moment to think—or that it could have slipped her mind at all. “He’s an—well… His lordship the viscount…” She lowered her voice and leaned in to Joye’s ear, and her bearing became conspiratorial, but not at all in the same way that it had when discussing Ser Chlodebaimt. “He doesn’t get on well with his lord father, not since he was ejected from squiring… oh, must have been more’n seven years ago—something about a barmaid? I can’t properly recall but that it was a scandal and a half, and his lordship the viscount said he’d not become a knight even if it were that or disowning, and ever since—well, he mostly keeps to himself when he’s even in the manor at all, he keeps a garret near the foundation and supervises the manufactory, ever since his majority. He’s a _queer_ man, brilliant though, but eccentric as anything—but, ultimately,” she straightened, her back cracking, for gossip was a rigorous field of work, “Stephanivien’s harmless. Don’t concern yourself about him, dear.”

“…Yes, miss,” Joye said, trying to process all of… that, especially given the speed at which it was delivered. “I’ll not trouble meself with him, then.”

“There’s a girl. Now then,” Nelly darted to a small door, to pull it open and rummage through the interior, “here’s your broom, here’s your dustpan. Let’s earn our keep, hm?”

Joye took the tools from Nelly and curtseyed once again, and in the same tone that she’d used on Mistress Audrey earlier, said, “Much obliged, miss. I’m lucky to work here, I know.”

“What a polite girl you are,” Nelly cooed, before hoisting her rugs onto a cart. “Report to the laundry in two bells, now, dear.” With that, she and her cart were leaving the wing, leaving Joye to her own work and her own thoughts.

Certainly she’d not want for entertainment, working for a family like _that_ , she thought. Though perhaps the temptation to unwise gossip might be something to watch for—no matter how freely Nelly had spoken to her. And for a simple note of common sense—it was likely the household was going through milk, butter, cheese, cream, and any or all other forms of dairy at a terrific rate, housing as it did five elezen at various stages of adolescence. She made a mental note to keep her eyes (and nose) alerted to signs of forgotten milk or cream liable to spoil.

But even so, so far it had seemed that all the gossip about the Haillenarte household as a fair place of employment was accurate—and that was something, Joye reflected, that she should and could honestly be grateful for even were they not rich and she not poor, for bad luck—

“Nelly!” An unfamiliar, bright male voice that echoed in that hall made Joye jump and shrink back instinctively: the speaker, for his part, looked appropriately abashed. “Oh—oh, I’m sorry, dear, I don’t think I know you.”

“I’m new, milord,” Joye said, with a curtsey—for her guess was this speaker must have been one of the older three sons of Haillenarte: blond hair, ears of a comely length for elezen men, very, _very_ tall, but still rather… gangly and limbsy. “Me name’s Joye, milord.” It was a good guess, but still just a guess: While the color and material of his clothes was clearly fine, he was in only rumpled, rolled-up shirtsleeves and an open vest, like some kind of working man—and even more like a working man, there were various bits and bobs hooked to his belt, and quite clearly his trouser legs needed adjusted.

“A pleasure—and you don’t need to curtsey.” Joye furrowed her brow in confusion, but whoever-his-lordship-was spoke very quickly, it seemed, and wasn’t fond of being slowed down. “By any chance, you wouldn’t have seen my father, would you?”

Joye hesitated, decided this was confirmation he really was a son of the House Haillenarte,then began, “When I arrived, his lordship was tending to her ladyship’s fruit garden—” She raised her arm to point in the direction of the hothouse, but he had already left with a hurried thank-you, almost running and paying no nevermind to the din he made on the staircase.

She stood in the increasing quiet as he departed, wondering what in all the realm that was. It took her a few seconds longer than it ought to have to notice a persistent ringing bell from the end of the hallway—the master bedrooms, where… as Nelly had told her… her ladyship Countess Lapinette de Haillenarte was napping. Right away, Joye scurried back to that room, knocking on the door—when met with a sleepy “Come in, already!” she scurried in, holding her broom and dustpan like Halone’s spear and shield, as if they made for protection from a grumpy Countess.

“Milady?” Joye said quietly, uncertain, as she approached the master bed—enormous, with an elaborate canopy and a panoply of quilts and pillows. Propped up on the latter and covered by the former laid Lapinette, the countess—her red hair in a messy, disheveled braid and her vision bleary from sleep.

“—Who’re you, darling?” she asked, curious but not unkind.

“I’m Joye, milady.” Yet another curtsey. “I’m the newest maid.”

“Oh, my—the urchin my dear husband found.” Now curiosity was replaced by concern, and Lapinette sat upright, attentive. “Poor little darling—but what was that ruckus?”

Well, there was nothing else for it, but… “It was your son, milady, he was looking for his lordship the Count.”

The Countess sighed softly. “Which of my sons?”

Joye bit her lip. “I don’t know. He—he didn’t say, milady.”

“Ah, then Stephanivien.” The Countess sighed, loudly, and dragged one hand down her face.

“I’m sorry, milady?” Joye offered, after a moment.

“No, no. Don’t worry yourself. You may get back to work,” Lapinette said, rolling over into the pillows. After a moment, Joye directed a curtsey at her back, then turned to leave. “—No, wait one moment.”

“Yes, milady?”

Lapinette reached under the largest of her pillows, and pulled out a very pink, very velvety purse. She beckoned to Joye, and when she had drawn close enough, took her hand and pressed three large and two small silver coins into her palm.

“Go find him, and tell him I will give him fifteen thousand gil for the shopping if only he _promises_ me he will have tailored trousers and shirts whose legs and sleeves are the _correct_ length,” the Countess whispered, sotto voce but vehement, to Joye. “And he must promise me _in person_. To my face.”

“Yes, milady,” Joye said, with a hurried nod, and when Lapinette waved her off again, she scampered back out the room and down the hallway, the way Stephanivien had gone. It turned out she was absolutely correct about this position not wanting for entertainment.

Even five years later, it didn’t lack for eventfulness, and at least one story per visit to tell her father at home—whether to do with Francel and his rambunctious best friend, or Aurvael getting living samples from the new outpost in the Sea of Clouds, or one of Stephanivien’s visits resulting in something exploding. The to-do, for example, when the Countess discovered that Laniaitte had cut off all her hair to better fit a helm—that alone was a fortnight’s worth of dinner table stories, the tale of how the household was a veritable verbal warzone, with both women expecting everyone else to take one side or the other, and even a siege mentality took hold near the end of it. And likely it would have been the most memorable event of the year in the manor, had not the red moon fallen mere moons later.

* * *

“Drink with me,” said Chlodebaimt.

Stephanivien had just been about to drift off on a perfectly serviceable nap, and so he skeptically cracked open one eye in response to the request. He had perfected the art of sleeping standing up, from years in Skysteel Manufactory: put one’s back to the stone wall, feet apart, legs firmly braced and knees locked, firmly cross one’s arms over the chest, lean one’s head against a light or torch sconce (but not a lighted one that could scorch one’s long, elegant ear-tips). It was no replacement for a proper sleep in a proper bed, but if he had to make do, it would do—and it meant that when Chlodebaimt (younger and shorter) asked, he was already at eye level with him.

“‘m tryin’ to sleep,” he grunted, voice hoarse (from the smoke, most likely).

“You’ve been awake for thirty bells,” Chlodebaimt said, his smile fragile, weak, but honest. “If you still need to _try_ to sleep, you might as well help it with a drink.”

Both eyes now open, Stephanivien looked over his brother. Chlodebaimt’s armor was still whole, though blackened in more than a few places; it took more than that to destroy proper mythril. His helmet was off and helmet hair was quite apparent, the golden blond strands bent, frizzy, and crusted with dirt, dried blood, and other things Stephanivien didn’t really want to contemplate right then. A cut split his forehead, though it was now clean (well—clean _er_ ) and dressed; several small purple bruises marred his skin.

“You look like a wreck,” Stephanivien observed.

“And you look like _shite_ ,” Chlodebaimt laughed, Stephanivien joining in with a soft chuckle shortly. “Come on. Accommodations at the Steel Vigil aren’t exactly luxurious these days, but at least we still have wine and brandy.”

It was bleakly good fortune that they did, what with the Dravanian siege on the fortress entering its fourth moon in what _shouldn’t_ have been the dead of winter anymore. Supplies had been laid in shortly before the lesser moon fell, and in bulk and excess (Ishgardians being nothing if not paranoid), and it was only because of that that the garrison hadn’t starved to death. It’d be the third astral moon in less than a week, and harsh as Coerthan winters were, normally the weather would have allowed at least one large resupplying shipment to restock the fortress. But since that infernal moon fell, snowstorms had buried Coerthas with only the briefest moments of respite between. And of course, it hadn’t taken long for Nidhogg’s accursed horde to sense the opportunity, covering their tracks with the heavy snowclouds to better raid and pillage the highlands. Now, here they were—trapped in the great Steel Vigil by both unnatural snow and wind and unholy fire and fangs. In total honesty, Stephanivien wasn’t even supposed to be there, he’d just had the bad luck to be on a trip to repair the ballistae when the first attack came—and then, he had no choice but to do his noble-born duty to church and country.

“I’ll take the brandy, frankly,” Stephanivien said as he pushed himself off the wall, to follow Chlodebaimt, the latter chuckling in amusement at his brother’s morbid remark. Apparently Chlodebaimt had been planning for company already: a few bottles and two glasses stood conspicuous near his bedroll, in the remains of what had been the grandest hall of the vigil—now broken stone, splintered wood, twisted steel and burnt bones.

“I invited Corentiaux, but he refused,” Chlodebaimt remarked as he seated himself. “Said he feels feverish, and shouldn’t drink.”

“So, I’m your second choice?” Stephanivien joked, sitting across from him andstretching out his legs, bending out the stiffness in his knees.

“Always my first choice.” Chlodebaimt’s voice held mild reproach and guilt alike as he poured glasses for both of them. “You know that, Stephan.”

“I know, I know.” Apologetic, he took a sip and closed his eyes, savoring the burn. “Thank you.”

“Well, _some_ one has to drink it before it turns to vinegar—”

“Not for that. Thank you for—well.” Stephanivien gestured unhelpfully. “First choice, and all.”

It was Chlodebaimt’s turn to enjoy the vintage. “No one else I’d rather keep the faith with, for Halone and country.” He rolled the glass in his palm, as if it were a real brandy snifter and not one of the few and mismatched heavy pieces that had thus far remained intact enough to drink from. “And,” he added, with a wry smile, “I’m not saying that because your ‘dragon-killers’ actually live up to their damned name.”

(It was astounding how even when their grim fates drove Chlodebaimt to sardonic jokes and rueful humor he could make them sincere as any confession, as anything he said. There were a lot of things Stephanivien could have envied Chlodebaimt for—strength at arms, endurance, flowing hair, their father’s love—but it was that quality he wanted most for his own).

“I do my duty,” he said, with modesty not actually affected. Then, more gravely: “You know the fortress is lost.”

Chlodebaimt sighed like the very breath of his life was leaving him. “Barring a miracle, yes. And I do—And I _will_ —keep the faith. But…”

“It is time to discuss the retreat,” Stephanivien said, with grim persistence. “You and your commanders. These men—maybe they are all fated to die against Dravania. But they deserve better than to give their lives in defense of the House’s vanity and pride—and if the fortress is lost, then—”

“In defense of Ishgard!” Chlodebaimt protested, offense bright in his voice and eyes, even as low as the lamps were. “This _is_ the Steel Vigil, and it has stood for—”

“Will they defend Ishgard’s symbols, or Ishgardian lives?”

With a sharp intake of breath and a sharply bitten lip… “You’re right,” Chlodebaimt accepted. “I must at least give them the option.”

Stephanivien offered his own wry smile to his brother, his rather more fragile. “And—you know, maybe think about taking it yourself.” He swallowed more brandy. “Please.”

“Oh, come now—you can’t expect the Rose Knight to _surrender_ ,” Chlodebaimt laughed, and Stephanivien hated his sincerity with every fiber of his being. “Father would just die of shame.”

“He would want you to live.” He couldn’t make any humor (ironic or otherwise) come to his tone, only urgency and pain. “You know he does. You _are_ the rising star, the light of his life—Mother’s, too. Even as their third son.” A third quality entered his voice, now: conspiracy. “You should be the heir.”

Almost like he had been scorched, Chlodebaimt recoiled from his brother. “Our parents love you, too.” He was as vehement as when he defended Ishgard’s honor. “You can’t beg me to live, then—then throw away your own, like—”

“Oh, I have no intention of dying.” Stephanivien’s intent gaze tracked every moment of Chlodebaimt’s hesitation, his refusal to make eye contact. “I move: we leave here with your men, in one piece, we go home—we sleep for a week—and then we announce I shall forfeit my inheritance, and do bequeath it immediately to you.”

“Stephan—” his brother said, all reproach and resistance. “Stephan, he would never accept that from his children—”

“A good thing we are both men grown, then,” Stephanivien said firmly, then softened his tone. “Look. Chlo. I’ve thought about this for a long time. It’d be good for the House, in all ways. You know I’d be a rotten Count. You _know.”_

Chlodebaimt took a deep drink. “Only because you’re too bloody-minded. And, even then…”

“You _are_ the viscount our family deserves.”

Another sigh deep enough to contain his life-breath. “…Don’t think you’ll just be left to play in the manufactory all day, if I am Count.”

The widest grin Stephanivien had allowed himself in four months of siege spread over his face. “Of course not.”

“And nothing is finished. Or set in stone.”

“Nothing.”

“Even though—” Chlodebaimt’s chuckle was a surrender; defeated but pleased. “Gods, even though I could never deny you a thing.”

Stephanivien raised his cup, even though it held only dregs. “Long life to the Count de Haillenarte.”

And Chlodebaimt raised his own, to clink it against Stephanivien’s in a toast. “Red bleeds the name of the rose.”

But the soft sound of tapping glass was drowned by the roar of the horde, by a dragon the size of a church crushing the timbers of the Vigil’s roof with its weight alone. Both sons of Haillenarte had time to scramble to their feet, and nothing more, before everything was fire, and thunder, and blood, and darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is more to the story i have hinted at here of hilda and joye (because if you ask me, it is a crime they never interacted in canon), but sadly i had to cut it from this as it wasn’t serving this particular story. expect it sometime soon.

Three weeks later, Stephanivien was safe. When not securely ensconced in Haillenarte Manor (for his mother’s peace of mind), he was toiling in the heat of the manufactory, or barricaded in his garret, for he had much and more work to do. This was his explanation for why Francel and Laniaitte and Aurvael had barely seen him since the funeral, why he couldn’t go to services with his father more than once a week, why his mother had to beg to get him to eat some meals with the family. He was safe. He was fine. He had so much work to do.

Someone was knocking on the door of his garret, but he ignored it. This was delicate work he was at now: a fusion of Lominsan craft and Ishgardian industry, with more aetheric research than he had ever before dared undertake. (Likely at least one of the texts on aether-manipulation and alteration would be of some interest to the Inquisition, which was why he kept his work _here_ and not in the manor itself). It needed his full concentration. And yet, whoever was knocking persisted.

“Go away!” Stephanivien yelled over his shoulder, before bending back over his workbench, pulling his mask down against the electric sparks flying. And for a moment, he thought they had—before the rapping resumed, even louder now.

He tried to keep ignoring it, but this time, whoever it was was escalating both in force and frequency. If they kept it up, likely the other tenants would wake, and perhaps even his landlord—and the … _intense_ nature of his work over the past two weeks had produced complaints enough against him. And after a little longer, and with an exceptionally aggravated groan, Stephanivien dropped his torch and wires and stormed over to the door. If it _was_ finally the Inquisition, well—perhaps he’d finally get a chance to vent his anger.

“Yes?!” He demanded, as soon as he opened the door—to thin air, as it turned out. Looking left, looking right… then looking down. “…Oh.” His mother’s favorite maidservant stood there, balled fist upraised and frozen, her expression looking up at him almost entirely transformed from irritation to awkward mortification.

At this hour he hadn’t dreamed it’d be a lone maiden at his door, so between that and his pique at the interruption, he’d just answered the door as he’d been dressed while working: welding mask, thick gloves, torn apron, sturdy boots… loose and cropped trousers, stripped to the waist. (It was hot, hard, sweaty labor, and he was running low on shirts he could ruin). “…Sorry, Joye.” He stepped back from the doorway, awkwardly—not quite prepared to invite aforementioned lone maiden who worked for a respectable house inside at half past the first morning bell; fortunately, she was ready to invite herself in, standing just inside and to the left of the door, like she attended him in his workshop as she attended his mother in her parlor or bedchambers. “I wasn’t expecting you.” Stephanivien looked again outside, left and right—but as before, it was empty. Standing there with one hand still holding the door open, he asked, “What are you doing out here at this time of night? And alone?”

“I came to tell his lordship,” Joye began, and something about her tone suggested to Stephanivien that she had been rehearsing this message, “that I have finished preparing Chlode—” her voice faltered, she blushed, “—the fifth suite in the southwest wing for his lordship’s residence and use.”

Both of Stephanivien’s eyebrows arched. Not at the content of what she’d said (that news he had been expecting; an olive branch offer from his father disguised as a balm to his poor mother’s grief which he’d accepted right away)—but rather its context. “You came out here—alone, in the middle of the night, _just_ to tell me that?”

Joye bit her lip, and suddenly began to decline eye contact, which was most of an answer on its own. “I also brought milord some food, some dri—”

“My mother put you up to this, didn’t she?”

Abruptly Joye sighed, and resumed looking him straight in the face, with an unusual amount of candor in her eyes. “Her ladyship the Countess is worried sick about milord.”

Now it was Stephanivien’s turn to sigh, and rub at his face with the heel of his free hand, finally pulling the door close. “I’m fine—really, I am.” After a sudden start of remembrance, he turned around, his back to Joye, in order to pull on the nearest plain (formerly) white shirt that presented itself. “And besides,” he said over his shoulder, messily tucking in the front of the shirt, then struggling with small buttons and clumsy gloves, “It’s certainly odd that she’d send a girl out alone in the night if she’s _worried_.”

“Milord’s garret is in the borough I grew up in,” Joye said, patiently. “I was perfectly safe.”

“Mm. Right.” Slightly disgruntled, he turned around to face her, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So—you brought food…?” he asked, more for a topic of conversation than anything else.

She nodded. “Not hot food, but—” From under her coat (for it was still damnably, unseasonably, suspiciously cold) she pulled a little bag and opened it: it was full of bread, pastry, little glass bottles of fruit jams and jellies, a little packet of butter and another small cloth bag, that he suspected was for tea leaves.

“She thinks I am not taking afternoon tea often enough?” Despite the phrasing, his tone was amused and softly affectionate—more so than it had been all evening.

“Well, milord,” Joye took a deep breath, as Stephanivien turned over the jelly jars to read the labels, “her ladyship the Countess has had me bring you dinners, luncheons, sandwiches, breakfasts, and even elevensies, but they all sat barely touched in here when I came back. She hadn’t tried tea yet.”

“I see.” Now his tone was soft—perhaps even rueful, as he replaced the contents of the light little bag. “Tell her thank you for me, then,” Stephanivien said with genuine warmth, trying not to think about how the thing behind him Joye was staring at was probably a half-eaten sandwich or cheese toast.

“Yes, milord,” Joye said, finally turning her attention back to him. He smiled thinly, made a gesture of farewell—but Joye didn’t reciprocate, she didn’t even move, rather just watched him. So, after a few seconds of this, Stephanivien said “Aren’t you—Isn’t it late for you to be staying out?” (Not to mention what people might think…)

“I will return to her ladyship when I’m sure I can give her good news to lift her spirits,” Joye said, plainly but firmly. The insinuation that yes, it was _very_ _late indeed_ but she still had a job to do was clear to Stephanivien, who groaned. His work was important and delicate and he was perilously close to falling out of the rhythm he had gotten into if he didn’t get back to it _very soon_ and if that happened, he might as well just give up on tonight and go to sleep, or at least to try and sleep. (That this might have been part of Joye and Lapinette’s plan from the first did not occur to him, which was probably for the best).

But, looking around, there was precious little he could present her with that counted as good news (or at least, by the Countess’s standards). The garret was, presently, a wreck—while rarely _tidy_ , it was also rarely this bad, as he simply hadn’t had the time to either clean or let anyone else clean, resigning himself to doing spring cleaning after this project was completed or spring finally arrived, whichever came first. His laundry and personal state weren’t so bad, but still shameful, nor did he have any reassuring anecdotes from time with his friends and peers, being that he hadn’t seen any of them for longer than half a bell since before the catastrophic siege of the Steel Vigil. The only thing that was going well was his work, and that, Stephanivien suspected, wouldn’t quite satisfy his mother. But, it being his only option, he tried anyhow.

“Well—well, the aetherotransformer is coming along swimmingly,” Stephanivien offered, his voice bright, expecting that Joye would either take that as good enough (unlikely) or dismiss it out of hand (highly likely). Instead:

“What is an aether-transformer?” Her interest didn’t even sound feigned.

“…It’s a device to—I wanted to try to find a way to make Lominsan-style sidearm revolvers strike with the force of—at least half the strength of a Bertha cannon,” Stephanivien explained, mentally revising out complicated terminology as he went, and initially his heart fell when Joye looked at him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” she said, thoughtful. “There’s no way to get the bullet to go fast enough to impart that kind of force without destroying the gun—isn’t there?”

Stephanivien stared at Joye for a few seconds, face going from blank to disbelieving to a cautious smile. “Normally, you’re right—exactly right. No firesand and no chamber could do that. Which is why—” here he turned back to his workspace, then turned back with a big steel box-shaped contraption in his arms, “—I am bringing aether into marksmanship. This is my prototype—and it’s almost finished!”

Joye stepped closer to peer at it (for anything he held at his waist level was close to eye level for her), and lift some loose cording and wires, curious. “How do you use it?”

“Let me show you—” Stephanivien hurriedly kicked aside a pile of (dirty, probably) clothes, clearing a space on the floor to have a surface to put it on. He knelt next to it, while Joye only leaned down (probably because this put them almost at the same level). “Now, the principle behind this is—oh—how much aetherology do you know?” While he had no idea how she’d come to know the basics of firearm mechanics, he did now know he’d likely just look foolish again no matter which way he assumed.

“None, I’m afraid, milord,” Joye said, looking a little embarrassed. “Beyond we’ve all got it, and so does everything else. …And the six elements.”

“That’s perfect. So—if the problem with force is that there’s no way to move the bullet fast enough _by detonating firesand_ that doesn’t make the entire thing explode, then another way to propel it must be found. And I tried a few things, but the only one that really _worked_ was a combination of firesand and lightning-aspected aether.” To his astonishment and gratification, Joye was following his words and gestures like she understood them, and wasn’t just humoring him.

“I imagine wind wasn’t fast enough,” she said—and, before an almost-exultant Stephanivien could agree, continued, “But I think that’d mean you needed lightning-aspected crystals, and… I don’t see any, or even room for them.” This was shaping up to be the best night of his life.

“Indeed you don’t,” Stephanivien almost preened. “I tested the lightning-aether propulsion with crystals, but they were too bulky or too expensive and anyhow would be used up too quickly to make that method practical. And that’s where aether transformation comes in.” He pushed his square device onto its side, revealing some small crystals and gems set into some kind of gold. “To put it briefly, this device can take a person’s aether—the aether we all have—and convert it into elementally-aspected aether, in our case lightning-aspected. That’s the aetherotransformer.”

“Are you sure that’s not—dangerous?” Joye sounded hesitant for the first time since she’d begun asking about it, but was now bent to gaze raptly at the device, eyes shining.

“I’m sure it is, to be honest,” Stephanivien said, noting how her eyes actually sparkled at that, “but so are all weapons. It’s mostly a matter of not overdrawing your own aether too quickly—shouldn’t be too hard to quantify guidelines.”

“What do you have to do to finish it—to make it work?” she managed to tear her gaze from the machine to ask.

“Once I finish adjusting this part here—” he said, pointing as he spoke, “the really tedious part kicks in—I have to attach all of _these_ cables and _these_ wires to _that_ panel, in a very particular way. And with gloves like these,” here he wiggled the fingers of one hand, demonstrating how clumsy and stiff the protective gloves were, “It does take some time. Then just solder the rest of the case together, and it should be finished.”

“You’re doing it all by hand, milord?” Joye sounded nonplussed.

“…There’s another way?” So did Stephanivien.

At that, Joye began to rummage in her coat pockets. “You should use—a hook,” she mumbled, unbuttoning her coat to check other pockets.

“…Wouldn’t the point damage the ou—” He was cut off by Joye holding a thin wooden rod out to him: long in her hands (less so his), it was uniform throughout excepting one end, which had a taper and rounded head above a “hook” so small it was mostly a sharply-angled notch cut into the rod.

“Not this one.” Joye had a small smile on her face, he noticed, as he took it from her curiously, turning it over in his hands before pushing one cable under its hook, which held it firmly, and responded well to delicate movements. “It’s a crochet hook,” she said, anticipating his question.

Stephanivien beamed up at her. “The prototype will be in working order in two bells.”

He actually finished it in one and a half. Joye stayed, curious to see the test—she sat on the edge of his bed, legs kicking in midair as she watched him set it up, apparently puzzled at the quantity of old sheets, blankets, and waxed canvas tarpaulin it required.

“This will help absorb the impact,” Stephanivien offered in explanation, “so there won’t be any nasty ricochets off the target—which is this.” Like a prize, he held up what was unmistakeably a large piece of dragon skull—the only feasible thing to test the stopping power of his invention.

“Can you—can you show me first, how it works without the aetherotransformer?” Joye asked, curious (and obviously not privy to the first few rounds of testing).

“Certainly,” Stephanivien said—loading his gun but putting the machine aside. “This should penetrate the ‘flesh’—the padding—and strike the bone, but—”

_BANG_

Curiously, he thought, the noise didn’t startle Joye, who only waved away the smell of firesand as Stephanivien got the target from where it was propped, to show her. “You see,” he said, pushing away the spent bullet from where it had lodged in the packed cotton and canvas, “If a knight is disarmed and forced to use his sidearm, it would suffice against a man or a beast or even lesser monsters, but dragons do not fear little knives or little maces. A gun, being ranged, would be superior, except—” he pointed with one gloved finger at a small dark mark on the skull underneath where the bullet had torn holes in the padding, “—any dragon would shrug that off. No stopping power. No power to save anyone’s life.”

There was a little tremble in his voice during that last sentence, but Joye, to his infinite gratitude, pretended to ignore it. “And you think augmented bullets will crack dragon bones?” she asked instead, watching him hurry to re-set up the “target” to practice on.

“I’m fairly sure—but now is the moment of truth.” Stephanivien perhaps was feeling the hour more than he cared to admit, because he actually winked at Joye as he set up the aetherotransformer (a little clunkier, heavier, more complicated than was practical, but that was why it was a prototype), and reloaded his pistol. Bracing his elbow this time against the recoil, he took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

_**KKKKSH-BLAM** _

This shot didn’t just bang, but _burst_ and _cracked_ —both of them ducked instinctively at the sound. Even in as small a room as a garret it seemed to echo, and like there _should_ be something shattered raining about their heads. Silently, and slowly, Stephanivien went to retrieve the dragonskull target from under its flesh-simulating padding—when he turned back to Joye, he was holding both pieces of it in either hand, a wide and almost manic grin across his face.

“That’s—” Joye breathed, eyes as wide as saucers, “Milord, that’s more than a sidearm—”

_“MASTER HAILLENARTE!”_

The shout came from outside, from a gravely-voiced, grouchy, elderly man. Both of them startled from its suddenness, then Stephanivien groaned and rubbed his temples.

“My landlord. We’ve been too loud.” His head jerked up, eyes wide, as he heard footsteps approaching, and he hissed “ _Hide!_ ” at Joye just before the pounding at his door started for a second time that night.

* * *

The two years that had passed since Chlodebaimt’s death were not exactly distinguished ones for the House Haillenarte. Countess Lapinette was more secluded, more attached to her surviving children, while Count Baurendouin fell into a deep depression, and all around the House’s fortunes (and fortune) seemed to be in decline. Such was the rumor and the gossip, outside the manor and throughout the Pillars—and such was abundantly evinced by the roster of servants maintaining the manor.

The people employed by the House in domestic work had shrunk by more than a third in that time, and murmurs of discontent and sympathy alike for the employers ran through conversation. Audrey had left for greener pastures moons ago—Nelly was still there, and now head of everything and everyone in laundry and cleaning. And Joye—she was still there, and honestly of all the people currently kept on, she knew her situation was likely the most secure. Being the Countess’s favorite maidservant did have some material benefits, even if it increased her effective responsibilities threefold. Even so, the low morale these days affected both her duties and her mood—just because _her_ employment wasn’t likely to be reclassed as an expense the household ought to avoid…

She dusted the banisters in the north wing a little more angrily. Her position of influence with not only the Haillenarte matriarch but lately (and to a lesser extent) her eldest son lately had the functions of both a blessing and a curse. Other members of the household appealed to her even before the steward if they feared a pay loss or losing their position entirely, begging her to put in a good word for them with the wife and heir (for while the Count might go against one of them, he wouldn’t go against both). Some, however, resented this (entirely involuntary) leap in relative status of Joye’s, and chose to strike back by spreading unsavory rumors about her and Lapinette, or (more often, and now she was scrubbing at the wood like it was crusted with something) her and Stephanivien—this was not only a humiliation, but a danger, for if the Countess ever learned what people were saying her son did with maidservants behind closed doors…

“Trying to polish that clean off?” A scratchy male voice inquired from behind her—then laughed when she jumped and looked behind her with guilty eyes.

“Eudestand!” Joye said, originally chiding—then her face fell when she saw how he was carrying his tack, his things, and his own self. “Oh no…”

“Oh, yes,” he said, raking one hand through his brown hair and sighing. “His lordship has severed our paid relationship.”

“Oh…” She turned fully around, wringing her chamois between both hands—clenched hard, almost into fists. “I’m so sorry, Eudestand, I—”

“You don’t need to ‘pologize.” He interrupted—then again when she protested. “If his lordship’s mind’s made up, then there’s not much you or me coulda done. If I were bein’ honest, I was expecting it for a few moons now.” Eudestand smiled sadly down at her, shrugging with an air of affected nonchalance. “No need to keep on a groom for chargers and destriers if there’s no knights here anymore, and his old birds already retired.”

“He—he did at least say you’d be recommended, right?” Joye asked. “I said that—”

“I told you not to worry yourself, dearie,” Eudestand said, reassuring. “I already know you tried, and it means a lot to me. In fact—” he leaned down to her eye level, “If’n you ever need anything of old Eudestand, you just let me know.”

With a fond smile on her face, she softly patted his shoulder, and Eudestand winked at her before straightening and backing away, to continue his goodbye tour.

“—Wait—Eudestand, actually—”

“Ah,” he said in response, half-turning to face her, “got a bit lined up for me already, eh?”

“You know Hilda, right?”

At that he went still, which shouldn’t have surprised her, honestly. A High House’s favorite maidservant bringing up dangerous Brume radicals—and by said dangerous radical’s _forename_ —well, it didn’t happen everyday, and it usually meant something very bad was going to happen. …Even though said favorite maidservant knew Hilda from long before she called herself the Mongrel, back when she was only a scrawny girl trying to impress her older acquaintance by showing off with her stolen goods, guns, tools, and toys.

“I do,” Eudestand finally said, like a cautious confession. “I’m more surprised that you know her.”

“We used to visit the same patisserie,” Joye said, which was true, though nowhere near the whole of it. Eudestand had no response but somewhat bemused silence, which Joye took as permission to carry on. “And I know you know Olyver, Gert, and Percevains, and—and their gossip.”

That he knew and understood—Eudestand’s face darkened and lip curled. “Horrible lies, Miss Joye, I know they’re telling horrible lies about you.” Joye nodded, cheerfully and decisively—and Eudestand was back to a bit of confusion. “So… what exactly did you want as a favor?”

“Well—you know Hilda,” Joye said, after taking a deep breath, “and you know these people have been… lying about me.”

“Oh. …Oh!” Realization dawned on Eudestand’s face, then a smug and devilish glee. “Aye, miss, I know the Mongrel. I’ll be sure to have a word with her about this. Quiet-like, and all.”

Her smile a (very slightly) softer mirror of his, Joye waved Eudestand goodbye again, and turned back to polishing the remainder of that banister. After only a little longer, the upper floor was really just about done well enough for the traffic it got these days—so, with a quick glance up-down, left-right, to be sure no one who mattered was around, Joye hopped upon the banister and slid down side-saddle, dismounting with a little skip and twirl. Now for tending to the north wing’s entry hall—which, much like the second floor, didn’t want for cleaning so much as _dusting_ these days.

Hence Joye’s startled yelp when a very firm, very loud knocking came from the door. For a few seconds, she just looked at it like it might bite. No deliveries were made at the north entrance, nor did she know of any visitors at all planned for today, much less ones who’d be inclined or instructed to use this entrance. Curious… The next set of knocks stopped her wondering, and instead Joye opened the door. “Hello, hono—oh my!”

The person at the door was no one she knew—indeed, he must have been a newcomer to Ishgard altogether. Even taller than the biggest knights she’d ever laid eyes on, and several times broader—this must have been a Roegadyn, but she’d never met one in the flesh before now. What’s more, his clothes were such a motley, raggedly collection of colors, he must have been an outlander. And yet, despite being a hulking bear of a man, covered in the scars of battle and probably quite capable of breaking a midlander girl over his knee if he was so inclined, he seemed at least as alarmed and dismayed as she was right now.

“Ah—beggin’ yer pardon, uh—milady,” the strange Roegadyn stammered (was that a Lominsan accent? she’d heard it described but never spoken), “I was given an uh—offer of employment by the vise-count—I have the letter, and this _is_ the hide—the eye—”

“…Haillenarte?”

“Yes, _that’s_ it, thousand thanks and uh—and apologies, milady Einhardt—”

“Oh!” Her hand flew to her chest in surprise. “I’m sorry, but I’m not one of the family. I’m one of the maids. …Here, do come in…” Joye held the door open for the strange outlander, getting completely out of the way so he could fit his breadth through it. “It’s dreadfully cold out there, isn’t it?”

“Er—yes, it certainly is, miss…?” He asked as he tromped in, though with mind enough to wipe his boots on the rug instead of tracking in slush.

“I’m Joye, milord. A pleasure!” She dipped into a brief curtsey, and he answered with a short and awkward bow.

“Me name’s Rostnsthal, miss—an’ I’m honored, surely. Cor, but the family wouldn’t ‘alf need an army o’ ye to keep such a place clean!” He whistled with what Joye believed was appreciation as he looked over the north wing.

“Thank you, Russ—er—milord,” Joye said, interpreting his words as a compliment. “I’m afraid I’m not sure where his lordship the viscount has wandered off to today, but if you’ll have a seat and wait here, I shall—”

A strange sort of metallic chirrup, from down one hallway, interrupted her as she was taking off the Lominsan visitor’s raggedy old coat, especially as the one chirp was followed by more, increasing in frequency. Both she and Rostnsthal were watching the direction of the noise (now, they could hear, accompanied by footsteps)—and just as his mouth was opening to say something, probably “What in all seven hells” or the like, the source of the chirps opened the door, revealing itself to be none other than his lordship Stephanivien (vest half-unbuttoned, shirttails still out, bandana askew, still with patches of shaving foam on his jaw) and a small device he was holding.

“Hello, Joye!” He said cheerily, with a wave, though most of his attention was fixed on the strange little machine in his other hand, noisy and heavily-dialed and with a very twisty antenna, that right was pointed directly at her and Rostnsthal. “And you, my good man, must be Rostnsthal!”

“Aye, but—how did you—”

“There are very few Roegadyn in Ishgard, you know—and, of course, this helped.” Beaming, he patted the little device the way some falconers stroked their birds for a job well done. “It’s one of my newest—I call it a prospectometer, a measuring device of luck and opportunity. I was just finishing shaving when it began to chime, and now it has lead me straight to you, here after my teaching offer!”

Rostnsthal and Joye both blinked in a moment of bemusement before he spoke up. “…Right. Yes. That I am, milord. You were needin’ an expert to train you in shootin’, according to your letter.”

That grabbed Joye’s attention. Sharply she looked between the two men, but now their focus was on each other. Shooting—Rostnsthal must have meant marksmanship. But… if his lordship was training, then was he going to battle? It was the only arms skill she could think of in which he would need instruction; from what she remembered of how he handled his guns, at ranges and other exercises.

“No, no, not _me_ —the rest of my manufactory,” Stephanivien corrected Rostnsthal, finally wiping the shaving foam off his face as he did. “Or those willing to learn the new art of machinistry, at least, which is a fair share, I assure you.”

Now Rostnsthal was looking a bit recalcitrant—and, if either of the two men had paid too much attention to the maid, they would have seen her leaning as close as she could get away with, raptly attentive and only a little nervous. Most of Stephanivien’s fellows in the manufactory were of the same class and social station as she and Eudestand (which was as much a reflection of his lordship’s agenda and priorities as it was the reality that all of his peers and most of his lessers in the peerage considered such to be dramatically beneath them); if his lordship’s Skysteel Manufactory was footing the bill in any measure for the training of Ishgard’s less-to-moderately fortunate in an art of war… Well. That was around as scandalous as a Countess whose favorite servant only recently used to eat croissants with the Mongrel twice a moon.

“Now, yer worship—”

“Just Stephanivien.”

“—I’m naught more than a ‘umble sailor ‘n soldier, and I don’t know a bloody thing about steel-working or engineering, so if _that’s_ yer offer, I’ll have to ah… turn ye down.”

“Not at all,” Stephanivien said, making placating gestures. “I’ll handle the fine nuances of using an aetherotransformer, you needn’t worry about aught more than teaching my men how to put a bullet between their target’s eyes.”

Rostnsthal at least seemed to notice how searchingly Joye was watching them talk, though he chose (it seemed) not to draw attention to it. Instead: “Very well, milord. For what wage?”

“I thought a salary of forty-thousand, divided in regular installments, plus room and board, would be fair,” Stephanivien said with a shrug and nonchalant air, both of which seemed to fade upon his noticing Joye’s and Rostnsthal’s open mouths.

“Milord—” Joye said, anxiously trying to put as much meaning in her eyes as she worried she couldn’t say aloud, “Milord, are you _entirely sure_ that’s wise?” To her relief, a slight pink blush began to spread over his cheeks and along his ears.

“Well—well, perhaps I had better show you what you’ll be working with, first,” Stephanivien said, trying to adjust his (perpetually crooked) collar to cover his awkwardness. “Just let me replace my prospectometer and I’ll be right along to show you the way!”

As quickly as he arrived, he left, already toying with the little machine. Not taking his eyes from Stephanivien’s retreating back, once the door had shut behind him Rostnsthal let out a breath and whispered: “He’s mad, isn’t he?”

“Only slightly, milord.” Joye offered him a reassuring smile and pat on his elbow. “Most of the rest are madder.”

“The rest?” Rostnsthal’s voice was remarkably weak for so massive a Roegadyn.

“Of the High House sons, I mean,” Joye said, sympathetic. “The House Haillenarte is probably the best in all Ishgard to work for.”

“‘M not sure that’s the recommendation you think it is, lass,” he muttered, but before Joye could ask what he meant, Stephanivien was back, sweeping into the room looking much more put together than before, taking Rostnsthal by the shoulder and walking straight out the hallway from the other side, leaving Joye standingin his wake, watching as he chattered about the manufactory and his plans for it, very quickly.

The last full sentence she could make out before those doors closed was “Now—I don’t imagine La Noscea has yet heard of Ishgard’s Mongrel, no?”

* * *

This was, surely, the best idea Stephanivien had come up with since taking over Skysteel Manufactory—which may have seemed, to an undiscerning outside observer, to be a low bar to clear, but since it had to clear aether-enhanced bullets that broke dragonbone, Stephanivien thought anyone should think very highly of it. Now, anyone who did think highly of it might subsequently wonder why the enaction of such entailed him furtively walking through the Brume, alone, well after midnight, but that was, so far as Stephanivien was concerned, just part and parcel of doing business with dangerous radicals.

They knew he would be coming—he wasn’t _stupid_ , and neither were the Mongrel and her gang. Through a carefully discreet passel of messengers, couriers, and converted industrial spies, and over a course of a moon and a half longer than he’d originally estimated, he had managed to convince the Mongrel—Hilda—that he had no intention of turning her over the authorities and actually had sympathy for her situation enough that she consented to meet with him. On her terms. And since they seemed fair enough, well—here he was, alone, carefully hauling a lumpy gunnysack with him, trying very hard to look like he belonged (he didn’t), he knew where he was going (he didn’t), and that he wasn’t nervous or anxious at all (he was).

There were rooms under the Forgotten Knight she’d instructed him to meet her in, but with the explicit instruction that he not be seen by the pub, let alone inside it. So, using his memory of the place like a lodestar, he had slowly and carefully descended ramps, staircases, scaffolds and ladders around that foundational column of Ishgard, into the Brume. And honestly, said Brume deserved the capitalization, thick and hazy and so easy to get lost in. None of the lanterns and fires could pierce the fog, only turning to soft lumps of light, gently diffusing along damp alleys and reflecting off the ice of their frozen puddles. And yet, despite the mist-light’s gentleness and softness, it was not at all welcoming or secure—at least four times Stephanivien had walked directly into a hard surface or sharp corner for not seeing it in time, and the miserable damp chill of it crawled up his neck and down under his coat and the tops of his boots, dripping from his ears and stiffening his fingers. Truly, this was a hells-worthy place—and thus his work all the more imperative.

He found the entry of the rooms Hilda had arranged to use almost by accident. Stephanivien knew they ought to be on this road, and was craning his neck and squinting to try to see the signs through the dark and the fog—subsequently walking straight into a sandwich board. After righting himself and the sign, he noted what it read: “ _Rooms for Rent, Forgotten Knight_.” Perfect. Adjusting his bandana, he ducked his head and walked through the doorway it indicated.

“‘Ello,” said the man waiting the front desk, a greying, middle-aged hyur who was quite obviously only awake by the grace of the stack of used tea and coffee mugs on the desk next to him. “Got a res’vation?”

“Room number fourteen, serrah,” Stephanivien said, and kept his face carefully neutral as the innkeep checked his register—and his bushy eyebrows rose to near where his hairline used to be.

“Yer name?”

“Cedrepierre, serrah.” It had seemed the most natural assumed name—and anyhow, the point wasn’t to fool the man at the desk (good thing, too), but just to have written records obscured. For now.

“Yer… companions… are already there. Same floor as this, left hall, third door on the left.” Already settling back to his almost-napping state, he handed his guest the other key, and ignored the quick polite bow that “Cedrepierre” offered before striding to this most fateful meeting.

Inside of the rented room was only very slightly warmer than the night outside, but it was very much drier, which put it, in Stephanivien’s estimation, on the better half of Foundation rentals. The lamps and fire were low, and as he entered, Hilda’s man pulled the coarse curtains over the window. The Mongrel herself, black hair shining gold in firelight, was sitting in one of two chairs allotted to that room—astride it, her chin resting on the back.

“Yer late,” she said lazily, flipping open a silver pocketwatch to check.

“Forgive me—I got lost,” Stephanivien said, stumbling over the absent “miss” or “madame” or “my lady” in that sentence.

“Rude to keep me waiting. Expensive, too.”

“I can hope—” Stephanivien dragged his lumpy old sack in front of him (but still a respectful distance from the Mongrel). “—that the gift I brought you compensates for that.” He couldn’t keep a smile from his lips as Hilda nodded to indicate to her fellow that he should check the sack. With his arms folded across his chest, Stephanivien stepped back to allow it—after only a minute to retrieve and unwrap the first of the items, the underling recoiled as though he’d been shot.

“Pistols!” he shouted, “Boss, he’s g—”

Both of Stephanivien and the Mongrel raised their voices at the same time, she to hush her underling, he to reassure them all of the pistols were unloaded and no threat at all.

“I’ll be the judge of that, yer lordship,” the Mongrel said sharply, taking the first gun and checking its chamber. Stephanivien watched silently (but with nervous fidgeting and itching) as the two checked each and every pistol and musketoon he’d brought. The verified-safe arms were piled on the bed, and Hilda didn’t speak until all of them had been so moved—and then stood between Stephanivien and his gift.

“Ye coulda warned me that _that’d_ be what you wanted to see me for,” she said, still hard-voiced.

“I worried you wouldn’t agree to it if I did,” Stephanivien replied, arms still crossed over his chest. “But at least now you can see there’s no threat.”

The Mongrel smiled briefly in a way that seemed to him more like a diplomatic concession than an expression of any emotion. “Not so fast. Yer lordship oughta tell me what kinda repayment ye want for these beauties.”

His brows knit and now the crossed arms were defensive in attitude. “I said it was a gift. I don’t w—”

“ _Forgive me_ ,” Hilda interrupted, biting the sentence off, “if I don’t blindly trust the generosity of rich noblemen to poor Brume maidens.”

“Ah—” Reflexively, he glanced at the upturned points of her ears, even as he internally kicked himself for the thoughtlessness of it. “Right. …Right. I assure you, there’s no ulterior, uh— _improper_ motivation for me, tonight, and—”

“I just _told_ you,” the Mongrel interrupted him again, showing her teeth, “That isn’t going t—”

“Wait,” piped up her underling, from behind her. “Wait—boss, isn’t he the one Eudestand was mentioning a moon or two ago?”

“Eudestand?” Stephanivien repeated, confused as to what his household’s former war-chocobo groom had to do with any of this. He was ignored by both of them.

“Him—? Which time Eudestand was mentionin’ highborn types, Symme?” Hilda asked, sounding both confused and frustrated.

“Remember, boss, it was that favor Joye called in, mentionin’ him?” Symme continued, scratching his head and squinting in remembrance. “With the lyin’, and…”

“Joye?” There was a note of surprise in Stephanivien’s complete bewilderment this time. “What favor?” As before, Hilda and her underling totally ignored him.

“—Oh!” Hilda’s memory had finally been jogged, recognition and recollection clear in her eyes. “An’ he _is_ the one, yeah, him and her…”

“So… yeah,” Symme said, slightly awkwardly, scratching his neck now. “If it were all… lies, and—”

“And it _were_ …” Hilda mused, tapping her chin. “Yer lordship?”

Both Symme and Hilda fixed Stephanivien with an intense scrutiny then, and while he certainly didn’t wilt under their gaze, neither did he have anything to yield beyond utter and absolute bafflement. Eyes blank, mouth slightly open, he mouthed something like “What?” but no sound actually escaped.

“Aye,” Symme said, nodding in a knowing sort of way. “Ye can’t fake that kind of clueless innocence.”

_“Hunh?”_

“When yer right, yer right,” Hilda sighed. “Fine, yer lordship, yer in the clear.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about anymore,” Stephanivien confessed.

“It’s fine.” The Mongrel waved one hand dismissively. “Now then—if the thought of pretty lil’ things fondling yer guns doesn’t get ye all hot under the collar—why _are_ ye giving us this?”

After a brief cough to clear his throat, steadfastly ignoring Hilda’s giggle, Stephanivien tried to explain. “I want to arm your people for their protection. …Hilda,” he said, deciding to risk using her forename. “These are even better than Lominsan rifles—I promise you, this makes you the equal of a knight. And it means you can fight back.”

Hilda had started squinting at him as he said ‘equal of a knight,’ and she hadn’t stopped. “‘Fight back?’ ‘Gainst what, yer lordship?”

“…Your oppressors.” This was almost as confusing as the Joye and Eudestand discussion. “The rich, the landed, the great bloodlines, those who exploit you, take everything you have and send you to die.” He’d seen it. He knew it happened.

“Ah. The elezen ones, not the draconic ones,” the Mongrel said, rather a bit more languidly than Stephanivien really thought appropriate for this sort of conversation. “Wasn’t sure.”

“ _Yes_. It’s the teach-a-man-to-fish principle,” he went on, in a mix of emotions including puzzlement, frustration, and pride. “‘Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats all his life,’ yes? Well—teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat all his life no matter how much gil he doesn’t have. Teach a man to _shoot_ , though, and he can stop the powerful who kept him impoverished.” Stephanivien finished brightly, a bit out of breath from the speed of it. Hilda and Symme, however…

“…You realize,” Hilda said, slowly and very deliberately, “you _do_ realize exactly how dangerous this conversation you are having with me, right now, is, right?”

He nodded, serious and intense.

“And you do realize,” Hilda said, softly, almost delicately, “that in effect you are telling me to shoot you, here, right now, hm?”

“Look,” Stephanivien said, arms open in either invitation or placation (depending on one’s attitude), “Both of us were born to stations neither of us wanted. This can redress that.”

The Mongrel actually rolled her eyes, then once again gave Symme one of her cryptic, instructional nods. “I decline yer lordship’s offer.” A beat. “Wi’ all due respect.”

“…What?” Stephanivien had to mouth the word a couple of times before succeeding in saying it aloud. “I don’t—why?”

“Because I don’t think you realize _exactly_ how dangerous it is!” Hilda stood at her full height—and even though she was tall for a hyuran girl of eighteen winters, it was something other than intimidating to Stephanivien.

“I do!” He protested, hands on his hips. “I have brought you weapons that crack dragonbone, I _understand_ the dangers you face very well!”

Hilda pinched the bridge of her nose. “You understand how dangerous it is?”

Stephanivien nodded.

“You want to protect the poor Brume urchins?”

He detected a note of bitter sardonicism that made him hesitate, but he nodded again.

“So you brought the Mongrel guns.” Hilda pointed back to the pile on the bed, and he nodded once more. “If you want to protect me, yer high ‘n’ mightiness, then _where is my shield_?”

Stephanivien didn’t nod. He didn’t speak, either, just stared blankly for a moment, before a red blush began to spread from his cheeks to his ears.

“If this meetin’ went wrong, who do you think would suffer for it?” Hilda pressed further. “Not you, an’ even if it were, not for long! You’ve no wages to be garnished, nor a landlord to evict ye!” 

Technically, that was untrue—he still maintained that garret—but then, the people she mentioned here had but one house. So he didn’t contradict her.

“And a whole bleedin’ lot a gun alone does for us! Without ammunition, and in self defense—good revenge, not much else! And that’s assuming no one arrests me just for havin’ one, who thinks I musta stole it!”

“I had planned for ammunition,” Stephanivien offered, but weakly. “Just…”

“Not good enough,” Hilda growled again, and he let the matter lie. “You want our welfare put first, don’t—don’t _do this_ ,” she said, and seemed to Stephanivien to be frustrated in the same way he was earlier, at others’ understanding. “I don’t mind my station! I mind bein’ treated like chocobo shite for it! And you—I can’t understand how you can want to help and _not_ want to be a Count, I just…” Hilda shook her head, and if Stephanivien were even a modicum less wiser, he would have thought her anger was waning and spoken up. “An’ you hired a Lominsan when, in your own cit—no, in your own _house_ —”

“What’s in my own house?” Stephanivien asked, suddenly curious enough for that to overwhelm what remained of his good sense.

The Mongrel shook her head. “Nothing. Nevermind.” She pulled her silver pocketwatch out again, to check the time. “Symme, we’re leaving,” she called back over her shoulder, and her underling nodded. Stephanivien didn’t protest, just watched her and Symme gather their coats, expression inscrutable.

“I won’t say,” Hilda murmured as she pulled her coat on, “Not to seek us out again. But I will say: Only do it when you actually _know what you’re doing_.”

“Yes, miss,” Stephanivien answered, in much the same register—meeting her eyes as he answered, but lowering his gaze as she and Symme walked out. “Good night.”

After the door shut behind them, Stephanivien pulled one hand down his face, slowly, then rubbed his temples. Slowly, and just too wearied to be casual, he walked from where he stood to the chair Hilda had straddled—turned it right-way around with one hand, then sat down in it—it was significantly too small for him, but he compensated, he leaned it and his shoulders back against the wall, he let his legs stick out in front of him. Looking between the fireplace and where its light gleamed golden on the barrels of all those pistols, Stephanivien removed and opened (in one motion) a flask from his hip pocket. Silently, he sipped, and he thought, and he nursed it, and he considered, and by the time he gathered his things and left that room, the brandy was gone, the fire had burned to embers, and all of the lamps had guttered and gone out.

* * *

The last few weeks at Haillenarte Manor had been… quiet. And while Joye usually appreciated getting peace and quiet, this time, it felt uneasy. It felt like waiting.

Countess Lapinette was in the highlands for another week—visiting her sister, and Joye would have accompanied had not Nelly cracked her shin and been laid up by it. His lordship the Count had some ongoing business that took him out of the manor except to have a nightcap and sleep, most days. And Stephanivien… well, all of a sudden, since late last moon, his lordship was in a _mood_. Wasn’t the first time, his lordship had something of an artistic temperament, but all the same it was never pleasant for someone paid to keep him at least somewhat presentable. He’d suddenly turn quiet, and reclusive, and when he was even in the manor at all he’d shut himself up in one room or another—recently he’d taken to working through the night instead of sleeping, and while usually that meant he’d be back to his usual self soon, it did make him more than a little irritable in the mornings. So, as a dreary winter started, the Haillenarte manor and its remaining inhabitants lived in a stillness that felt like a breath held.

And, when the quietude was disturbed—

“Ah, Mistress Joye! Who’s getting the sack today, hm?”

—well, generally she wanted it back. With a deep breath to brace herself, she faced the quiet ordeal that placing orders with the youngest of the draymen had turned into.

“Good afternoon, Percevains,” Joye said, in her most measured and patient tone. “I’m just here to deliver the grocery list.” She didn’t tell him not to call her “mistress”—he hadn’t listened the first dozen times, after all.

Percevains (an elezen youth about four or five years younger than Joye, but still taller) took the list quickly and read it through. “Right, right—I’ll get it all, deliver the wine to Aurvael, the chocolate to Laniaitte, you to the viscount’s garret—”

“Are there any problems, Percevains?” It was the proper question, to ensure there’d be no misunderstandings. But her tone was—not cold, her anger was anything but cold. It swelled with heat, and between her and he it promised a scorching if he decided to push any further.

(Joye grew more discontent with the quiet in the manor with every passing second).

“If there are? What are you going to do, sack me?” He laughed, unkindly, and inwardly Joye raged against the trap he had constructed for her: Percevains was so utterly convinced she had enough power and influence with the Count’s family that she could cause anyone’s firing or hiring within the household, that was why he hated her so—so if she tried to appeal to the steward or majordomo or anyone with _real_ authority to stop the torment he inflicted on her, he would simply regard that as proof and consider himself a martyr. _Infuriating_.

“I was referring to the one you have with me.” It came out almost without Joye thinking about it—but she didn’t try to back down or run away from it. Instead, she crossed her arms and craned her neck up to glare him in the eye.

“Problem with you?” Percevains laughed again, but it sounded more like a cover. He hadn’t expected her to be anything more than aggressively polite, Joye thought. “It’s not with _you_. I just don’t think you should be privileged for being born pretty—”

(Just last week she’d asked Hilda to speak to him again and she had been clear that she only wanted her to _speak_ , Percevains was obnoxious but still a youth and weren’t all youths stupid? With red at the edges of her vision, she sorely regretted that choice now).

“—and with a f—”

“ _Shut up_.” That Joye had very deliberately meant to say. She could feel her anger like it was a physical thing inside her, hot and red and near to _vibrating_. Not once had she blinked since posing her question to Percevains, and with no small amount of glee did she note that he turned his gaze away first.

Percevains grunted something nonverbal and resentful, and Joye accepted his surrender, momentarily satisfied. Calmly, she turned, and had walked the length of that hall before he called out loud and clear: “If your father weren’t invalid, their pity would’ve run out _years ago_!”

Right then, though, her patience went up in smoke. Almost on pure instinct she whirled around, along the way pulling her smallest coin purse (copper coins for lunch) from her pocket—and then flung it with all her strength at Percevains. And even through the red she was seeing, her aim was true, and the way he _hollered_ was more intensely gratifying than even her rage had anticipated.

But the fury, expressed and satisfied, thus subsided and the realization of what she had done made her stomach lurch. Striking another servant with the force she had (he was _still_ howling, and the part of her that still reveled in that, unrepentant, clouded her thinking and her judgement) wasn’t something she could just expect her employers to ignore. There would be consequences, severe ones, and Halone help her, but they probably included sacking.

Joye was frozen like a frightened steinbock. Percevains’ cries had attracted the attention of other workers by now, and—even at that distance, it was terribly clear how he pointed down the length of the hall at her—and perhaps it was her imagination, but she could have sworn the steward was pained, resigned as he saw her there, and shame began to well up in her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as the steward grew closer (even as part of her obstinately reminded her that Percevains _deserved it_ ); in response, he just sighed deeply.

“I know. But…I’m not—”

He was then cut off by the absolute last person Joye wanted to see right then running around the corner, still wholly unshaven and with bedhead. “What is the meaning of this?” Stephanivien demanded, pointing at one of the very youngest kitchen maids (a girl with long pink hair, a head shorter than Joye and usually very quiet) trying to keep up with him. “Amelia just ran to find me, saying Joye had _struck_ Percevains!” His voice was sharp with disbelief, and Joye wished right then for invisibility.

“I—” Joye began, but Percevains cut her off.

“She threw a coinpurse at me!” Percevains yelled, still with one hand clutching his ear. “I was just getting ready to leave, and she was at the end of the hallway, and she threw her coin purse!” 

“That’s unbelievable!” Joye couldn’t bear to lift her eyes from her shoes, but she could just picture the dawning anger on his lordship’s face, to go with his shocked tone. “Why, that must be a distance of forty-five fulms, at least, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Percevains was still riding high on his outrage. “And—”

“Were you aiming for his ear, Joye?” Stephanivien asked, apparently quite ignoring Percevains. She glanced around (mostly, since her head was still low, at various elezen men’s shoes and trouser legs; excepting Amelia’s quietly worried hand-wringing) then nodded once.

To her shock, Stephanivien whistled. “That’s a _very_ small target to hit at forty-five fulms. And in a quick-draw!”

That startled her into looking up and away from her feet. Stephanivien wasn’t angry. He couldn’t have been, not with the way he was beaming at her—and, she belatedly noted, she could see the same sort of caught-wrongfooted expression that she knew she was making on the faces of everyone else. “…Yes, your lordship,” Joye said at last—she didn’t think it fit the situation, but she couldn’t think of anything else.

“That is… _really_ impressive,” he mused, one hand stroking his jaw and chin—Joye and the steward shared a concerned look.

“My lord—”

“Excuse me? Did you—my lord, she just _hit me in the head_!” Percevains was clearly not about to let his lordship’s eccentricity give him any pause.

“I’m sure she had a _reason_ ,” Stephanivien said, offhandedly, not even really looking at Percevains. Everyone else suddenly held their breath.

“Wh— The same _reason_ that she sics the Mongrel on your own staff, my lord!” Percevains spat out “mongrel” like it was a curse, like it was the name of a monster—and of course, Joye realized, that was his plan. If his lordship was sympathetic to her despite what she’d done to him, then using Hilda’s epithet as a frightening boogeyman was a strategem to stop that. She was fairly sure it would’ve worked on the Count himself. And Stephanivien’s face did harden.

“Percevains, I know Hilda. She’s a good woman.” Now it was Percevains’ turn to suck in breath and freeze still. “Why would Hilda have cause to interfere in our household on Joye’s behalf?” Stephanivien was giving the other elezen a very penetrating sort of look. Joye, meanwhile, was realizing something big, something _beautiful_.

_His lordship didn’t know the rumors being spread_.

And logically, of course, it’d be in Percevains’ best interest to try and keep this from the viscount himself, given that they also involved him. Obviously. But that was not the same thing as _succeeding_ at so doing, and… well, she was quite aware that some men would have preened over such rumors (so long as they stayed small and controllable). Of course she hadn’t thought his lordship to be the type—but thinking so isn’t the same as being so, and sometimes people were full of unpleasant surprises.

But he honestly didn’t know, and judging by Percevains’ paralyzed silence, his continued ignorance of this was something Percevains badly wanted to maintain, and thus her course of action was clear:

“He was telling lies, milord,” Joye said. “Lies to… impugn my virtue.” Both the steward and Amelia nodded in confirmation.

“Well, then that’s settled! You’re fired,” Stephanivien said to Percevains—as an _aside_ , even, and didn’t pay him the slightest attention as he began to protest. Instead, as the steward stepped in to handle Percevains, Stephanivien leaned closer to Joye, hands clasped behind his back. “Do you think you could do that again? Hit so small a target, at the same distance?”

Joye hesitated. Not because she was unsure of the answer—but because it felt like there was more under that question, some kind of great moment, the edges of which she could perceive, but not the entirety. “I’m positive I could, milord.”

He smiled at her. “Show me.”

She took a deep breath. “The manufactory has a target range, doesn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the Les Mis Reference contest still stands)


	3. Chapter 3

Because her ladyship the Countess had put her foot down and was adamant that Stephanivien’s inventions never ever be discharged on the manor or its grounds, he did very little of his practical work there, and thus had no practical-work equipment there. This pleased Joye well enough even if for no larger reason than making the resultant mess someone else’s problem, but now she could see another advantage to it.

“—and Rostnsthal should be pleased, he remembers you, you know!” Stephanivien chattered over his shoulder to her—he hadn’t properly quieted since leaving the manor, and he was close to pulling her feet clean off the ground from the combination of the grip he had on her hand and the speed at which he was walking. Indeed, he was so eager to get her to Skysteel Manufactory he had barely waited long enough for her to put on her coat and had entirely foregone one himself—the resultant chill put redness on his cheeks that perfectly complemented his excited smiles. Down the road leading from the Crozier shops and stalls to his Manufactory, Joye had stumbled twice, lost count of the people whom she was bumped into, totally ignored any people watching the display with eyebrows raised and pursed lips, and by the time they had made it there, she was totally out of breath and simply couldn’t stop grinning. His lordship’s enthusiasm must be terribly infectious.

“Good _morning_!” Even though it would only be morning for a few minutes more, that was how Stephanivien greeted the workers at the manufactory, and they responded in kind, in a muffled chorus. Joye noticed too this most curious thing about the response: she could make out that some called him “Chief” and some called him “Boss” and there was one “Headman,” but there was not a single “My lord” in all the mix.

“You brought a guest today, eh?” A baritone voice, not Ishgardian—that was Rostnsthal, calling out from where he sat behind a few machinists testing their pistols. When he noticed Joye had noticed him, he winked and waved. “Morning, miss.”

“Aha, close!” Stephanivien said, already rummaging in a crate. “But Joye is no mere guest.”

“Oh?” Rostnsthal returned, eyebrows raised. “What’re you up to?”

“You’ll see!” Joye had never heard Stephanivien use such a sing-song voice, and she couldn’t help but laugh at it as she hung her coat up. “Alicen, if you could please allow us the use of that target for now…?”

Alicen nodded and left, as Stephanivien pulled a handful of musket balls from that crate and returned to where Rostnsthal was sitting. He crooked his fingers to Joye, and she came. “Yes, milord?”

“Which of these is closest in weight to that coinpurse?” He asked, holding the musket balls out; when Joye had picked the one he put the remainder aside and pointed to Alicen’s erstwhile target. “Now then—show me your aim.”

“As you wish, milord,” Joye said, smiling broadly as she darted back to the spot where Alicen had been standing. She settled into place, moving the ball between her fingers, until she was comfortable.

(“A recruit?” Rostnsthal murmured to Stephanivien, who just hushed him).

With one last breath, she pitched the musket ball at the target, and the powder on them that smudged her hands left a mark on the very center of the bullseye.

“Well,” Rostnsthal said, scratching his beard. “Girl’s got a good arm, at least.”

“She does,” Stephanivien said, failing to suppress a wide smile. Then: “Joye, would you like to try it with a firearm?”

“Very much, milord.” Joye bit her lower lip to tamp down her excitement. “That one, please?” She pointed at a medium-sized revolver, and right away Stephanivien was checking it over and loading it.

“‘magine you’ll need a pointer or two,” Rostnsthal muttered, stirring and making to rise out of his chair.

“I think she’s got it handled,” Stephanivien said, which halted Rostnsthal in his spot.

“You do, eh?” He was obviously skeptical.

“Let me show you first,” Joye spoke up. “Afterwards, I’m sure you’ll have advice.” Rostnsthal leaned back his chair with a grunt of concession, though it still sounded skeptical. Joye was fine with that, however—probably it was fair of him and it _was_ his job to teach, and it meant that when she did blow him away—

“Here,” Stephanivien said, carefully handing over the gun (a lovely mythrite creation, with spruce in its stock and frost-patterns etched down the barrel). “It’s already loaded. Just take off the safety and pull the trigger.”

Rostnsthal said something to Stephanivien then, and it sounded vaguely concerned, but Joye wasn’t listening to them anymore. There was something about holding this pistol—something that made Hilda’s fondness for hers make sense, as well as her fierce bravado whenever she wielded it. And surely it was a danger, and surely it was more complicated than a surge of feeling, but—those were questions for after she proved she could hit the broad side of a barbican, and better.

For her first shot, she steadied her aim with her left hand, resting the stock upon it. She braced her elbow for the second. And for the third, she shot one-handed, and for the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. All of them hit well inside the central circle of the bullseye, and when Joye turned back to Stephanivien and Rostnsthal, the latter had dropped his drink and jaw alike, and his lordship had actually, _literally_ jumped for joy.

“Tell me you’ll join the manufactory!” he shouted when he had come back down—quickly, awkwardly remembering himself and adding “Please,” to the end of it.

“Yer a _bloody_ good shot, form aside,” Rostnsthal said, still shaking his head in disbelief. “Thal’s balls, but—if ye took instruction on posture… n’ discipline… Thal’s _balls_ , I wouldn’t want to be in yer sights.”

“Oh—oh, yer lordship, do you think the Count would allow it?” Joye asked, immediately torn between hopes and worries.

“You leave that to me, my dear.”

* * *

Stephanivien understood why Joye was so worried. He still remembered why she took on the serving position—gods, almost eight years ago: the desperate _unfairness_ of a maiden so young forced to be the sole breadwinner of her family. And it had been pity then that led him to side with his father regarding Joye: to give her an opportunity even despite her youth. Now, he had the opportunity to do it once more, more fairly and honestly, and pity was the last thing he felt.

“Milord, er—do you enforce a uniform at the Manufactory?” Joye asked, as she worked on cleaning some guns with him (Rostnsthal “supervising”).

“Doublets and trews, and basic safety gear,” Stephanivien answered. “Why?”

“Well—well, I don’t think her ladyship the Countess would want me breaking the uniform, so I might need to change in between shifts…”

His brows knit in consternation. “Or you could just… work here, in the manufactory.” He spun the chamber of a revolver as he reassembled it, oiling until he was satisfied. “You don’t have to be a maid.”

“But—milord, me father—”

“I do plan to pay you, of course,” Stephanivien said gently.

“But—the Count—”

“You know,” Rostnsthal piped up from where he was drafting something (lesson plans, Stephanivien hoped), “Yer well in yer majority now, Joye. Yer old enough to tell people to sod off.”

Stephanivien chuckled, and Joye cracked a smile. “It’s just—the Count and Countess… they have been so kind, she especially… I don’t want to hurt or offend. And—I don’t think I would even if they weren’t me employers.”

“Sometimes, it’s hard to believe you knew Hilda even in her childhood,” Stephanivien teased, a wry smile on his face. “You don’t often sound like it.”

“It’s harder to believe _you_ know her, boss,” Rostnsthal interjected, wiping spectacles on his shirt (apparently finished writing). “Viscount of Haillenarte, an’ all.”

“He’s right,” Joye said quickly, giving Stephanivien a deeply interested and curious look. “However did you meet?”

“Ah—well,” Stephanivien cleared his throat, already blushing from the memory. “I had been… something of an admirer of hers for—not like _that_ ,” he said to Rostnsthal, who was grinning somewhat improperly, “—anyroad, an admirer of hers for a while, then about a moon ago I… ah… met her in the flesh. She—didn’t seem very fond of me, though.”

“Not surprising,” Rostnsthal grunted.

“But even so… I can tell she’s a good person. Even if the situation is such that I can’t rightly say when she’d be amenable to seeing me again.” He swiftly re-busied himself with fiddling with a pistol stock.

Joye, though, wasn’t quite finished. “This—this may be beyond me place, milord, but: is that why we’ve got all these firearms going spare?”

Rostnsthal made a surprised sort of noise, a moment-of-sudden-realization sort of noise. “Stephanivien—”

“Joye, you have the right of it.” He looked only glancingly up from that stock, with a smile twisted in a rueful sort of way. “I sought to win fair lady’s affection with gifts. She declined.”

“Well, I never—” Rostnsthal was shaking his head. “Can’t even give arms to rival factions in secret—you really are a _shite_ nobleman,” he joked, which Stephanivien protested vigorously.

“It isn’t like that—I really would prefer to see—”

Just then, though, there came a very loud and insistent knocking on the manufactory’s door—when another of the machinists went to answer it, it opened with such force as to almost knock the man over. Inside the frame stood a messenger—not a servant on an errand, a proper messenger of House Haillenarte.

“My lord the Count Baurendouin de Haillenarte requests his son Viscount Stephanivien de Haillenarte attend to him in his offices,” the messenger said, all in one breath (and all the more impressive for how he seemed to have _ran_ to the manufactory). “ _Immediately_.”

“Ah,” Stephanivien said, breezily casual. “I was wondering when he’d find out. Right, then,” he said, turning to wave to Rostnsthal and Joye, “Rostnsthal, you’re in charge. I’ll be back as soon as I can, two shakes of a karakul lamb’s tail, so on and so forth.”

Rostnsthal nodded his acknowledgment, and Joye nodded, eyes distant and brow furrowed—he couldn’t quite tell if she was anxious for him, or just thinking over what he’d said particularly thoroughly. Either way, though, Stephanivien made sure to catch her eye and give her a reassuring smile before setting off with the messenger.

“We mustn’t keep your lord father waiting much longer, milord,” said the messenger, with a hint of reproach, as he closed the door out behind him.

“Yes, yes, I know. He’s had the disgraced-the-family-name speech down pat for thirteen years, and doesn’t need to rehearse.”

And, sure enough, when Stephanivien entered his father’s office, paperwork was scattered, a ledger lay open on the floor, the shelves were askew, and the Count was visibly stressed. The messenger hadn’t even finished introducing his charge before Baurendouin was addressing him.

“My son, you have developed some _dangerous_ hobbies!” He snapped, brusquely tossing his reading glasses aside.

Meekly the messenger stepped back, and at a nod from Stephanivien backed out and firmly shut the door. “Which ones? I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

“Today is _not_ the day to mock me, boy,” said the Count, arms crossed over his chest. “There are vile and scurrilous rumors circulating about you of late.”

“Well then,” Stephanivien said, carefully resisting the impulse to cross his arms as well (both of them, arguing, with their hackles up never ended well). “Let’s start with the scurrilous ones, why don’t we?”

Baurendouin, judging by the glare he was leveling at his eldest, was not in the mood for flippancy. “That the viscount of the ancient High House of Haillenarte trafficks with dangerous Brume radicals in the dead of night.”

“First of all, there was no trafficking,” Stephanivien said, holding up one finger (for one point). “Secondly, neither you nor I want me to be the eldest son, yet that is how Halone willed it, so I don’t see why it should be treated like _my_ fault. Thirdly, I was and am perfectly safe. Hilda is reasonable, not a rabid dog.” And, after a moment to consider: “But I will concede that it was all done during the dead of night. That much is true.”

The angered flush on Baurendouin’s face had been steadily draining as Stephanivien spoke, until by the end he was collapsing into his chair, massaging his temples against an encroaching headache. “Halone grant me the strength,” he muttered. “Why— _why_ must you…” He trailed off, though from years of experience Stephanivien was able to fill in many possible endings to that sentence. Why must he dither in the manufactory, why must he skip off most of his training, why must he disregard so many planned social engagements, why must he humiliate his father and mother so.

“…It’s the right thing to do,” Stephanivien said, after a very long, very thoughtful pause. He and his father had… many differences, but on this matter, there could be agreement. Couldn’t there? “You don’t believe half the stories about her, you can tell she’s not some blood-soaked demon.”

“If she were half as vicious and powerful as the hysterical ones swear she is, we’d all have our heads on pikes already,” his father said drily, leaning his elbows on his desk and resting his head against them. “Be that as it may, though, she’s not tame and you do not possess the ability to tame her.” Here he shot Stephanivien a sharp look from under his fingers. “No matter how many pistols and revolvers you sell her.”

Stephanivien’s previous sensible advice to himself was instantly discarded in the surge of outrage he felt. “I am not trying to _tame_ her!” He shouted. “This isn’t some machination, I assure you, I _want_ her to succeed. That is—” He shook his head, lip curled, momentarily lost for words—but found them soon enough. “She’s not an animal to be tamed, she’s a hyuran woman who wants justice.”

“You are very sure of that,” Baurendouin said, weary. “On what do you base your confidence?”

It took several deep breaths for Stephanivien to calm himself down to a speaking voice again. “I denied there was trafficking. The reason for this is twofold: First, that I never intended to sell, but to give freely. Second, that she refused them outright.” Baurendouin removed his head from his hands at that, giving Stephanivien a sort of look that he couldn’t quite recognize—but, as that meant it at least was _not_ anger, frustration, or disappointment, he chose to consider it a positive sign. “You can check the manufactory’s accounts and inventories as many times as you like, with an army of accountants; everything is as it should be and there are none of my creations in the Brume. Is this consistent with scheming or with a violent insurgent?”

“That will not be necessary—the accountants,” Baurendouin sighed. “You are this vehement, I trust your word.”

“What Hilda wants is—is the welfare of the poor, their dignity,” Stephanivien tried again. “Is that not what you want? Our payrolls are more generous than Durendaire and our staff—proportionately, at least—larger than Dzemael’s. So they can afford to live and work.” Baurendouin sighed again, but it was a quiet sound. “That impulse that compelled you to show mercy to Joye—that same impulse is what tells me that helping Hilda is the right thing to do.”

“Speaking of Joye,” his father said suddenly, “I said there were more rumors than just the one concerning the Mongrel.”

“Yes, father?”

“There is one concerning you and Joye,” Baurendouin said, very delicately—and Stephanivien had to squint, but he thought he could make out pink returning to his cheeks. “It… claims to explain a perceived undue favor you show her.” It took a moment for him to put together the insinuation, but when he did—both ears, tip to tip, went red with anger and embarrassment, and his mouth worked furiously but nothing intelligible came out. “Judging by your reaction, there is no truth to this one at all.”

“None whatsoever,” Stephanivien finally managed. 

“ _Good_ ,” Baurendouin said, in a very final tone, and his son nodded energetically. Gods above, that surely explained a few things…

“If—if that is all,” Stephanivien said, his mind still mostly on putting back together old memories with this new information, “I ought to be getting back to the manufactory.”

“I suppose you ought,” Baurendouin said, fetching a bottle and a small glass from a cabinet behind him. His son nodded, after a moment turned to leave— “Wait—What you said, about Hilda…” 

“Yes?” Now Stephanivien was fully in the moment again, hanging off his father’s words, hoping.

“I’ll… I’ll keep it in mind.” He started pouring out his drink—deep amber whiskey. “I believe you’re… closer to the right of it than most.”

A slow smile spread across Stephanivien’s face, not large but pleased. “Thank you, father. —Oh, and…”

Baurendouin coughed softly after taking a swallow of his whiskey. “Yes?”

“…In case you hear another rumor, about Joye—yes, I have inducted her into the manufactory.”

This time Baurendouin coughed violently. “You _what_?”

“She’s a dream with a pistol, Father!” Stephanivien said quickly. “I’ve never seen anyone with better aim, she’s even better than I am!”

“Have you told Lapinette?” There was a terrible sort of dread in those words—and in that moment, Stephanivien’s understanding of Joye’s position on the matter was greatly expanded.

“Don’t worry, Father, Joye said she’d like to maintain her position in the manor if it’d be a fuss, otherwise—”

“That’s not what I asked, Stephan.” Baurendouin’s voice was very firm.

“…I have not.” His father groaned like he’d been punched, and began pouring another shot. “…And you know Mother thinks you’ve been drinking too much of that.”

“ _Fine_.” Baurendouin sighed, pouring out the glass into a (rather ailing) potted juniper. “But it’ll all be proper. Not a hint of mischief, and I’ll pull her from the Manufactory if there is.”

“You have my word.”

* * *

A week later, Joye found herself thrown into a cell right after Hilda. She landed on her hands and knees, and hurriedly crawled to put her back against the far wall, no matter how undignified the process was. At the very least her jailer did not jeer or make mock of her, rather just snorted contemptuously. Hilda—Halone bless her, save her, keep her—Hilda had kept her feet, and put herself between Joye and anything else out there. Her stance was undaunted, unafraid, and she didn’t budge until the inquisitors and temple knights alike had left them alone, and then just enough to ask Joye, “You well?”

She had drawn her knees up to her chest, and rested her chin on them. “I’m sorry.”

It had seemed like a worthwhile venture—not without risks, but worth them: supplying the Brume not just with Skysteel’s creations, as his lordship had wanted, but its discounted castoffs—fuel that perhaps was unfit to heat a forge that shaped adamantite or titanium but would cook a roast or a pie nicely, metal too soft or impure to be forged into a musket barrel but could be worked by even the Brume’s working men and women into tools that sufficed for their purposes. (And what’s more, it constituted a productive end to his lordship’s perfectionism, and thus was unimpeachable from all possible angles of criticism). And it was easier for her to get in contact with Hilda about cutting this deal without it seeming suspicious than it was for his lordship, she knew—he had no choice but to rely on paid messengers and errand-boys and the like, but as for her—who could see something out of the ordinary in a maid asking her laundress to ask her brother to tell his downstairs neighbor (“yes, Eudestand, unless he’s moved? Oh, he’s still there, oh good,”) that she wanted to go see the acrobats and tumblers that Firesday night with their mutual friend? Stephanivien could never manage to keep as low a profile as Joye could—and, to ensure the plot’s secrecy, she’d kept it entirely to herself, and of arms only took the pair of pistols she’d been gifted on her induction, to show goodwill. His lordship would understand, she was almost certain.

Only, the first inquisitor had it _in_ for Hilda, more than any of them had thought, and even Eudestand and Symme were being watched closely now. Shortly after midnight, their trap had been sprung, and a cluster of armed men had declared the three of them under arrest—on what charges, she hadn’t quite heard, but between her imagination and her clear recollection of Hilda’s backtalking and sarcasm, she could gather that they were both bad and largely baseless. Yet considering the leadership of the Inquisition these days, Joye thought, likely that wouldn’t matter. Neither honesty nor fairness would get her out of this.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Bah, don’t ye apologize,” Hilda scoffed. “It’ll be fine. I’ve broken outta jail before, I can do it again.”

“This jail?” Joye asked.

“Not this section of it,” Hilda said after a reluctant pause. “Last time in here they tossed me in with the public drunkards and vagrants. Think they were tryin’ to teach me a lesson.” She grinned at Joye. “Didn’ take, whatever it was.” 

And Joye offered a smile in return—frightened, and feeble, but still. “How would you do it? Break out, I mean.”

“Well…” Hilda mused, walking along the bars and peering at them, as if to better inspect them for flaws or weaknesses. “Usually the easiest way to get out is to do it through the opened door—but there’s a lot more guards between us and the way out, not good for a bit of deception, misdirection, an’ runnin’ like hell.” She sighed, aggravated. “If only we had a _lantern_ , now, that’d be a different story…”

Curious, Joye lifted her head from her knees. “A lantern? How would that help?”

“Well, first ye break it in half, use the candle tallow to grease the hinges, or lock, or whatever ye think you can dismantle, scratch the slats on the stone to make files, and then the bottom half makes a handy grappling hook, and that’s halfway out.” Hilda shrugged, then squatted down by the cell door. “By dawn someone’ll bring some bread, might be we could discombobulate them into leaving their lantern behind.”

“That’s really clever,” Joye said. She was trying to think—she had been the one to get them into this mess, and if she could banish her worries, she would like to _try_ to help get them out.

“Learnt it from someone else,” Hilda said, absently scratching at her ear. “…Thanks, though.”

“I’m not sure I can be much use. I had some things that might could pick a lock, but they’re all with the stuff they took.” Joye frowned, staring down at the cold, rough stones of the cell floor.

“Aye, same with all mine. An’ don’t apologize, yer not the type who ought to carry weapons of hatpins, or the like.” Hilda changed her posture to lean back against the stone wall—like she was settling in for a long wait.So, as the apprentice jailbreaker, Joye mimicked her teacher: sitting, waiting, and thinking.

One uncomfortable fact kept coming to the forefront of her mind: even though a fair investigation (if it even happened) would reveal that she had done (mostly) no wrong—breaking out of a jail was, indisputably, a crime. One of many for Hilda, of course, hence her resignation to it—but gods, what would this mean when the Count and Countess found out? Or her father? He might applaud the principle, but if the results cut into her ability to feed the household…

Like this, her worried thoughts repeated themselves over and over. Outside the little barred window, the stars slowly turned in the sky, in much the same fixed pattern—and by their lights, it was past the second bell after midnight before something happened.

A guard approached their cell door, holding no lantern but instead a ring of keys. “You—” he said, pointing at Joye. “Yer the maidservant?”

She nodded on reflex.

“Yer coming with me.” The key rattled in the lock, and with long elezen limbs, he only had to take one step inside to reach her.

“Wh—What’s happening?” Joye tried to keep panic from her voice, looking to Hilda for guidance but seeing only uncertainty and resignation.

“Don’t know, just that there’s all seven hells’ worth of a racket downstairs.” The guard sounded, of all things, _bored_ as he pulled the cell gate back to, locking it again before “escorting” her roughly down the staircase.The last Joye saw of Hilda before the spiraling stairs blocked her view was her fists, balled white-knuckled in the same impotently furious way Joye had clenched her own.

The trip down, past the pegboard of keyrings, past the chest of prisoners’ effects, passed in stony silence for Joye—which made the furor the guard had mentioned very apparent, as they neared the entrance. Two—no, three men were talking very loudly, one of them apparently trying and failing to soothe one or both of the others, and one of the voices she knew… Just as brusquely as he had pulled her from her cell, Joye’s escort shoved her into the hall, where the clerk at the front desk was trying to hush First Inquisitor Charibert Leusignac, who himself was quite close to entering a shouting match with…

“Joye! Finally!”

Stephanivien stood before the front desk, as imposing as an elezen man his height could be, dressed to the nines in boots, coat, and hat all with fur trim, all impeccable, and his hair in a neat braid. He raised one hand to gesture at her, and the lamplight glinted off the silver of rings he usually never wore. “Yes, she _is_ my servant, she has been employed by our house for _years_ , and I _will_ hear what could possibly drive you to _arrest_ her!” Joye had never heard him more outraged—but nor had she heard him outraged like this, like an actual nobleman, not—Stephanivien.

“My lord, _please_ —” began the (truly pitiful) desk clerk, but the First Inquisitor did not let him continue.

“Theft, good ser.” Charibert’s voice was self-satisfied and silky at once, and the incongruous combo repulsed Joye. “She’s a little thief who tried to fence her stolen goods with dangerous Brume radicals.”

“What stolen goods? I don’t believe it!” Stephanivien didn’t let the First Inquisitor’s accusation hinder him in the slightest, though Joye was glaring daggers into the side of Charibert’s head.

“The products of your very own manufactory, Viscount.” Charibert held up two pistols then, holding them with his fingertips as though the mere association with the likes of her (or, perhaps, _him_ ) had somehow polluted them. “She was fencing them to the Mongrel, along with metal scraps and half-burnt coal, my men caught them red-handed.”

Joye was giving Stephanivien the most pleading sustained gaze she could manage—and for a harrowing second, his mask of highborn assurance slipped and she thought she saw a man thinking _very_ quickly—but then he glared at Charibert with narrowed eyes and a fresh well of outrage tapped. “First Inquisitor, how _dare_ you call House Haillenarte’s charitable work theft and radicalism!”

“—Charitab—” Charibert was obviously dumbstruck—either by surprise or by Stephanivien’s sheer hubris.

“This metal and fuel is not being _sold_ , it’s a gift! I certainly have no use for it, nor is the ancient High House a consortium of _merchants_!”

“And the _weapons_?” The First Inquisitor’s voice was pure ice. “Are those also a gift?”

“Certainly not!” Stephanivien lied, to Joye’s delight and trepidation. “They are my servant’s lawful possession.”

Both the clerk and Charibert were not expecting that. “You— _arm_ your servants, ser?” Charibert asked slowly, but before he could fully reorient himself, Stephanivien was speaking again.

“For visits to the Brume, certainly!” He gave the clerk, the First Inquisitor, and possibly the entire prison as a building an imperious look. “You don’t think it’s not _dangerous_ down there, I’m sure.”

“No, my l—yes, I mean—Yes, my lord,” the clerk stammered, trying and failing once again to mediate between Stephanivien and Charibert, the latter giving the former a very calculating look.

“Perhaps it is just the company she keeps, Viscount,” Charibert said, with an affected delicate quality in his voice. “As First Inquisitor, I must be allowed to do my job, for everyone’s safety. Don’t you agree?”

“You _have done_ your job.” Stephanivien spoke with rock-solid finality, like a man who never feared he might be disobeyed. “I, the Viscount de Haillenarte, have confirmed there was no crime, and I demand you release my House’s servant from your custody. It is unseemly to continue to treat a maiden in this fashion at this hour, First Inquisitor.”

The two glared at each other, the room silent, anticipating. Charibert blinked first.

“Very well, my lord,” he growled, like every syllable needed to be cut out of him. “Give him the key to the effects chest,” Charibert said to his clerk, with a harsh poke in his shoulder, “You can retrieve that much yourself, _my lord_ ,” he spat at Stephanivien before storming deeper into the prison.

“I—w-well, I’m terribly sorry about—all that.” The poor clerk sounded on the verge of hysterics (probably, Joye thought, she would be too if she had to deal with a man like the First Inquisitor with any kind of regularity). “Truly, my lord, I—here—and—”

“We’ll be fine,” Joye said, sounding as helpful and understanding as she could muster. “Only—the steps up that way are very dark. Might we use a lantern for the journey, ser?”

* * *

“Oh, that’s really clever,” Stephanivien marveled as he walked up the road, Joye at his side. “Do you think she’ll drop by the manor today or the day after? Only I might need to warn a few people, so…”

“Probably today, milord,” Joye answered, shifting her bag to the opposite hand. (He had offered to carry it, but Joye refused him. She wanted to maintain this charade a while longer). “She was real keen on having her effects back.” 

He nodded. “Right, then I’ll warn the gatekeep. Wouldn’t want to risk her breaking—”

“Like hells ye will,” said a confident voice behind them—and when they turned they saw Hilda, tired but triumphant.

“That was fast!” said Joye.

“How’d you follow us?” said Stephanivien, at the exact same time.

“It’s easy, when ye know how,” Hilda said, declining to clarify who she was responding to. “Now: Me effects?”

Joye held open the little bag she had been carrying, and quickly Hilda retrieved her things from it: pen-knives, a stick of charcoal, a vial each of boot-black and leather oil, a little purse, a ring of keys, and a small but exquisite pocketwatch, silver with rose-gold inlay and set sapphire. “A thousand thanks, Joye,” Hilda said, stuffing all but the watch in her pockets. “Woulda gutted me to lose it.”

“And, if I may—” Here Stephanivien opened his coat and pulled out from it a revolver—a custom make of his, black and gold and, knowing him, as powerful as it was beautiful. With a smile, he presented it to Hilda. “If you want it.”

Hilda considered his offer for a moment. “Joye told me you came to bail her out,” she said, thoughtfully, but something about her expression suggested that what she was thoughtful about was not the events of this night.

“Aye, I did.”

“More than that—he got the First Inquisitor to dismiss it altogether!” Joye added. Hilda smirked.

“And dressed like _that_? Well, well… I’ll take that off your hands, then. I imagine it’ll come in handy,” she said as she took hold of the stock, then lifted it from his hands, testing the weight and balance. 

“Milord—Milord, what would you have done if the First Inquisitor saw that?” Joye asked, a little perturbed. True, those sorts of fashionable coats were very extensively padded and trimmed, so it would have been unlikely… but even so…

“Lied some more, honestly,” Stephanivien said with a shrug. “I’m not terribly worried about myself, here. The worst that could happen is Father kicks me out of succession, and he’s known I’ve wanted that for years.”

“ _Nobles_.” Hilda was shaking her head, but smiling (at least somewhat) affectionately. “Anyroad—better go back and break Eudestand out.” With one last wave farewell, she ran back the way she (presumably) had come, darting into an alley and out of sight.

Stephanivien and Joye continued their slow walk back to the manor. “The sun should be coming up soon,” Joye observed, mid-way through a yawn.

“Ideal time to go to bed,” Stephanivien said, rolling and stretching his shoulders.

“What about the manufactory?” Joye asked. “We’ve got all that spare steel to package up for delivery—not to mention Rostnsthal wants to work on trigger discipline…”

“Well,” Stephanivien said, a smile spreading across his face, “well, my dear, if you put it that way, and if it won’t be just me…”

“Back to work, milord?”

“Aye!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that’s all! while continuing this is probably not my next project, more of this series about this silly elezen family and hyur girls is definitely in the pipeline
> 
> (does it count as slow burn if the 30k words before they kiss are in separate works)

**Author's Note:**

> name all instances of les mis reference, homage, and/or allusion and win a prize.
> 
> (this is an already-finished work, i am simply staggering the posting into parts for everyone's benefit)


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